Motivational Strategies in the Language

Classroom
Author By: Zoltan Dornyei
Submitted By

Name : M.Venkata Ramesh

Roll. No.: 11131A1254
Name : G.Venkataswara Rao
Roll. No.: 12135A1202
IT-1, 3rd B.Tech.
About this author:

Zoltan Dornyei received his PhD in psycholinguistics from Eotvos University, Budapest, in
1988 where he then worked for 10 years as a teacher trainer and applied linguist. In 1998 he
moved to the UK, he is currently Professor of Psycholinguistics in the School of English
Studies, University of Nottingham.

He has published over 60 academic papers on various aspects of second language acquisition,
and is the author of several books, including Teaching and Researching Motivation (2001),
The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language
Acquisition (2005), Motivational Dynamics, Language Attitudes and Language Globalisation
(2006), and Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed
Methodologies (2007).

He has received the Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize of the Modern Language Association of
America and the TESOL Distinguished Research Award. 

About the content of this book:

To discussing motivational strategies, that is methods and techniques to generate and
maintain the learners' motivation. Although a great deal has been written in the past about
what motivation is, describing its components and dimensions and how these in hence
learning, very little has been said about how this theoretical knowledge can be applied in the
actual classroom.

Motivational strategies:

Motivational strategies are techniques that promote the individual's goal-related behaviour.
Because human behaviour is rather complex, there are many diverse ways of promoting it in
fact, almost any in uence a person is exposed to might potentially affect his/her behaviour.
Motivational strategies refer to those motivational in uences that are consciously exerted to
achieve some systematic and enduring positive effect.

With respect to the various strategies promoting classroom L2 learning, there are several
ways to organise them into separate `themes'.

We could, for example:

.1. Focus on the internal structure of a typical language class and cluster the strategies
according to the various structural units (e.g. strategies to present new material, give
feedback, set up communicative tasks or assign homework).
.2. Design a primarily trouble-shooting guide in which some particularly problematic facets
of the classroom's motivational life are listed and suggestions are offered on how to handle
these (e.g. how to deal with student lethargy; lack of voluntary participation; or anti-learning
in uncles of deviant children).
.3. Focus on key motivational concepts such as intrinsic interest, self-confidence or student
autonomy and use these as the main organising units.
. 4. Centre the discussion on the main types of teacher behaviour that have motivating effects
(e.g. showing a good example and modelling student behaviour; communication and rapport
with the students; consciousness rising about self-regulated strategies; or stage managing
classroom events).
Key units in this process-oriented organisation include:
 1. Creating the basic motivational conditions:

Motivational strategies cannot be employed successfully in a `motivational vacuum' certain

preconditions must be in place before any further attempts to generate motivation can be
effective. In my experience, the following three motivational conditions in particular are
Indispensable:

1. Appropriate teacher behaviours and a good relationship with the students;

2. Pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere;
3. Cohesive learner group with appropriate group norms.

Appropriate teacher behaviours:

I will discuss four general points. The teacher's:

 Enthusiasm;
 Commitment to and expectations for the students' learning;
 Relationship with the students;
 Relationship with the students' parents.

Good relationship with the student:

Develop a personal relationship with your students.

More specially:
 Show students that you accept and care about them.
 Pay attention and listen to each of them.
 Indicate your mental and physical availability.

A pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom:

Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom.

More specially (in addition to suggestions mentioned in other sections of this chapter):
 Establish a norm of tolerance.
 Encourage risk-taking and have mistaken accepted as a natural part of learning.
 Bring in and encourage humour.
 Encourage learners to personalise the classroom environment according to their taste.

A cohesive learner group with appropriate group norms:

Promote the development of group cohesiveness.

More specially:
. Try and promote interaction, cooperation and the sharing of genuine personal information
among the learners.
 Use ice-breakers at the beginning of a course.
 Regularly use small-group tasks where students can mix.
 Encourage and if possible organise extracurricular activities and outings.
 Try and prevent the emergence of rigid seating patterns.
  Include activities that lead to the successful completion of whole-group tasks or
involve small group competition games.
 Promote the building of a group legend.

2. Generating initial motivation:

Enhancing the learners' language-related values and attitudes:

Promote the learners' language-related values by presenting peer role models.

More specially:
 Invite senior students to talk to your class about their positive experiences.
 Feedback to the students the views of their peers, e.g. in the form of a class
newsletter.
 .Associate your learners with peers (e.g. in group or project work) who are
enthusiastic about the subject.
 Highlight and demonstrate aspects of L2 learning that your students are likely to
enjoy.
 Make the first encounters with the L2 a positive experience

Integrative values related to the L2 and its speakers:

Promote `integrative' values by encouraging a positive and open minded disposition towards
the L2 and its speakers, and towards foreignness in general.
More specially:
 Include a sociocultural component in your language curriculum.
 Quote positive views about language learning by in until public figures.
 Encourage learners to conduct their own exploration of the L2 community (e.g. on the
internet).
 Promote contact with L2 speakers and L2 cultural products.

Increasing the learners' expectancy of success:

Increase the students' expectancy of success in particular tasks and in learning in general.
More specially:
 Make sure that they receive stuffiest preparation and assistance.
 Make sure they know exactly what success in the task involves.
 Make sure that there are no serious obstacles to success.

Increasing the learners' goal-orienteers:

Increase your students' goal-orienteers by formulating explicit class goals accepted by them.
More specially:
 Have the students negotiate their individual goals and outline a common purpose, and
display the final outcome in public.
 Draw attention from time to time to the class goals and how particular activities help
to attain them.
 Keep the class goals achievable by re-negotiating if necessary.
 3. Maintaining and protecting motivation:

Making learning stimulating and enjoyable:

Make learning more stimulating and enjoyable by breaking the monotony of classroom
events.
More specially:
 Vary the learning tasks and other aspects of your teaching as much as you can.
 Focus on the motivational and not just the information in your class.
 Occasionally do the unexpected.

Making the tasks more interesting:

Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learner by increasing the attractiveness of
the tasks.
More specially:
 Make tasks challenging.
 Make task content attractive by adapting it to the students' natural interests or by
including novel, intriguing, exotic, humorous, and competitive or fantasy elements.
 Personalise learning tasks Select tasks that yield tangible, ®noshed products.

Increasing student involvement:

Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learners by enlisting them as active task
participants.
More specially:
 Select tasks which require mental and/or bodily involvement from each participant.
 Create specie roles and personalised assignments for everybody.

4. Rounding off the learning experience:

Encouraging positive self- evaluation:

In this we are going to look at how teachers can help learners to consider their own achievement in a more
positive light. More
Specially, we will examine:
 how to teach learners to explain their past successes and failures in a constructive way;
 how to help them to take more satisfaction in their successes and progress;
 the characteristics of the kind of feedback that best promotes their ongoing learning;
 The controversial effects of the rewards and grades dispensed in class.
 Promoting motivational attributions:

Promote effort attributions in your students.

More specially:
 Encourage learners to explain their failures by the lack of effort and appropriate
strategies applied rather than by their inset client ability.
 Refuse to accept ability attributions and emphasise that the curriculum is within the
learners' ability range.

Providing motivational feedback:

Provide students with positive information feedback.

More specially:
 Notice and react to any positive contributions from your students.
 Provide regular feedback about the progress your students are making and about the
areas which they should particularly concentrate on.

Increasing learner satisfaction:

Increase learner satisfaction.

More specially:
 Monitor student accomplishments and progress, and take time to celebrate any
victory.
 Make student progress tangible by encouraging the production of visual records and
arranging regular events.
 Regularly include tasks that involve the public display of the students' skills.

Offering rewards and grades in a motivating manner:

Offer rewards in a motivational manner.

More specially:
 Make sure that students do not get too preoccupied with the rewards.
 Make sure that even non-material rewards have some kind of lasting visual
representation.
 Offer rewards for participating in activities that students may get drawn into because
they require creative goal-oriented behaviour and offer novel experiences and
consistent success.
References:

1) Zoltan Dornyei, Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom(2001),

(First Edition),
(http://www.slideshare.net/carlachavezs/motivatonal-strategies-in-the-language-classroom-
dornyei-zoltan)