Филологические науки/5. 5.Методы и приемы контроля уровня владения иностранным языком.

Пермінова В.А., Шендерук О.Б.

Чернігівський державний інститут економіки і управління

Initiating and sustaining motivation

It is accepted for most fields of learning that motivation is essential to success: that we have to want to do something to succeed at it. Without such motivation we will almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort. If motivation is so important, therefore, it makes sense to try and develop our understanding of it. Are all students motivated in the same way? What is the teacher's role in a student's motivation? How can motivation be sustained?

At its most basic levels motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something. A cognitve view of motivation includes factors such as the need for exploration, activity, stimulation, new knowledge, and ego enhancement.

Some scientists state that motivation is a 'state of cognitive arousal' which provokes a 'decision to act as a result of which there is 'sustained intellectual and/or physical effort' so that the person can achieve some 'previously set goal' .The point is that the strength of that motivation will depend on how much value the individual places on the outcome he or she wishes to achieve. Adults may have dearly defined or vague goals. Children's goals, on the other hand, are often more amorphous and less easy to describe, but they can still be very powerful.

The motivation that brings students to the task of learning English can be affected and influenced by the attitude of a number of people. It is worth considering what and who these are since they form part of the world around students' feeling and engagement with the learning process. The society we live in; outside any classroom there are attitudes to language learning and the English language in particular. How important is the learning of English considered to be in the society? In a school situation, for example, is the language learning part of the curriculum of high or low status? If school students were offered the choice of two languages to learn, which one would they choose and why? Are the cultural images associated with English positive or negative?

All these views of language learning will affect the student's attitude to the language being studied and the nature and strength of this attitude will, in its turn, have a profound effect on the degree of motivation the student brings to class and whether or not that motivation continues. Even where adult students have made their own decision to come to a class to study English, they will bring with them attitudes from the society they live in, developed over years* whether these attitudes are thoroughly positive or somewhat negative.

The teacher: clearly a major factor in the continuance of a student's motivation is the teacher. An obvious enthusiasm for English and English learning, in this case, seems to be prerequisites for a positive classroom atmosphere.

The method: it is vital that both teacher and students have some confidence in the way teaching and learning take place. When either loses this confidence, motivation can be disastrously affected, but when both are comfortable with the method being used, success is much more likely.

At the beginning of a course, with students at whatever level and at whatever age, the teacher is faced with a range of motivations. Some students have a clear goal, fed by a strong extrinsic motivation to achieve it. Others have an internal intrinsic drive which has fired them up. Others still may have very weak motivation, whatever type it is. But a student's initial motivation (or lack of it), need not stay the same forever.

Increasing and directing student motivation is one of a teacher's responsibilities, we cannot be responsible for all of our students' motivation. However, there are three areas where our behavior can directly influence our students' continuing participation:

Goals and goal setting: we have said that motivation is closely bound up with a person’s desire to achieve a goal. A distinction needs to be made here between long- and short-term goals.

Learning environment: although we may not be able to choose our actual classrooms, we can still do a lot about their physical appearance and the emotional atmosphere of our lessons. Both of these can have a powerful effect on the initial and continuing motivation of students. When students walk into an attractive classroom at the beginning of a course, it may help to get their motivation for the process going. When they come to an unattractive place motivation may not be initiated in this way

We can decorate even the most unattractive classrooms with all kinds of visual material to make them more agreeable as learning environments, Even where this is not possible because the classroom is not 'ours, we can still change the atmosphere through such things as the use of music; even the immovability of the furniture (if this is a problem) can be ameliorated by having students get up and walk around the room when this is appropriate.

All of this is less important, however, than the emotional atmosphere that teachers are able to create and sustain. That is why they have to be careful about how they respond to students, especially in the giving of feedback and correction. There is a need for a supportive, cooperative environment to suit the various learner types we discussed in Section b of this chapter. Interesting classes: if students are to continue to be intrinsically motivated they clearly need to be interested both in the subject they are studying and in the activities and topics they are presented with. We need to provide them with a variety of subjects and exercises to keep them engaged. The choice of material to take into class will be crucial too, but even more important than this will be the ways in which it is used in the lesson.

Our attempts to initiate and sustain our students' motivation are absolutely critical to their learning success, so, motivation is as much a matter of concern for the teacher as it is for the learner; it depends as much on the attitudes of the teacher as on the attitudes of the students.