MOTIVATION, EXPOSURE AND

FOCUS ON FORM AND THE ROLE

OF ERROR.
 MOTIVATION
 Motivation is the thoughts and feelings which make us want to and continue to
want to do something, what turn our wishes into action. Some factors that
influence motivation include:
 The usefulness of the language.
 The interest in the target language culture.
 Feeling of knowing a language.
 Encouragement and support from others.
 The wish of communicate with people who matter to you.
 Interest in the learning process.
THE USEFULNESS OF THE LANGUAGE AND
THE INTEREST IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE CULTURE.

 People can see the usefulness of the language because it

can help them to achieve practical things such as finding
a better job, getting onto a course of study, good grades
or booking hotel rooms.
 The interest in the target language culture is related to
our interested in the country’s culture in aspects such as
the customs and lifestyle, and see the target language
as a key to understanding and becoming part of the
culture.
FEELING OF KNOWING A LANGUAGE AND
ENCOURAGEMENT AND SUPPORT FROM OTHERS.

 The feeling of managing to communicate in a foreign language

can make us want to communicate more and better, for this
we need to develop confidence, autonomy or independence
and have a sense of achievement, they are all part of feeling
good about learning a language. This feelings comes from us.
 On the other hand encouragement from others comes from
family, teachers or because we live in a foreign country.
THE WISH OF COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE WHO MATTER
TO YOU AND THE INTEREST IN THE LEARNING PROCESS.

 This is we have family, friends or boyfriend or girlfriend,

business partners who speaks another language and we want
to develop our relationships with them, this is a strong
motivation to learn a language.
 When we have an interest in the learning process is because
we like the teacher, the way he/she teaches, the classroom
activities, the coursebook or the topics.
 Some motivations come from inside and others from the
learner’s environment.
EXPOSURE AND
FOCUS ON FORM.
 DEFINITION
 Exposure: this is one main way we learn a language, exposure is hearing and/or
reading it all round us and without studying it. We pick it up automatically,
children learn their mother tongue (first language) without realizing.

 For an adult exposure is not enough to learn a language, they need to focus on
the form of the foreign language, how this is pronounced and written,
grammar, vocabulary, how they are formed and used and of course interact
with the language.
 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.
 Acquiring the language or language acquisition is picking up language, this means that the
person is surrounded by language, they have lots of exposure, they hear and read language
everywhere. This is the natural form and the learners don’t realize they are learning, there is a
silent period when they work out unconsciously the meaning and form of the language.

 Experts also say that we need interaction with other people, express ourselves in a clear form
and understand others. Vocabulary such as structures and chunks can help us to get our
message across.

 Focus on form is paying attention to the grammar and pronunciation.

THE ROLE OF ERROR
 DEFINITION
 Making mistakes is an important part in the learning process, it allows students
to experiment with language and measure their success when they
communicate. We’ll see the kinds of mistakes, why they make the mistakes and
the part that mistakes play in language learning.
 ERRORS AND SLIPS.
 Errors occur when learners try to say something that is beyond their
knowledge or language processing. This means that learners are still
processing or don’t know that part of the language, learners cannot
correct errors by themselves because they don’t understand what is
wrong.
 Slips on the contrary happen because of tiredness, worry, or other
circumstances. Usually learners are not concentrated on what they are
saying or writing, this is not lack of language, simply the attention is
somewhere else at that moment, when they realize they problem
those mistakes can be corrected by themselves.
REASONS WHY SECOND LANGUAGE
LEARNERS MAKE ERRORS.
 The first reason is the influence of learner’s L1 (mother tongue/first language) the
influence it has on the second language (L2) he/she is learning, this influence is
interference, perhaps they use the grammar, sounds, patters or lexis of their L1 in
the L2 (English) in this case.

 The second reason is because their process is not yet complete, they do not have the
complete knowledge, this is called developmental error. Some examples are use one
tense instead of other, simple past for the present perfect tense, past verbs forms.
 THE PART ERRORS PLAY.
 They are part of learner’s interlanguage (student’s version of language), this has a progress
as learners learn more. Errors are a natural part of the process. By making mistakes you
realize you don’t know something and you try to put it right.

 Developmental and interference errors can disappear by themselves without correction as

the learners learn more language. Learners need exposure to lots of interesting language
at the right level.

 When an error doesn’t disappear, but gets fossilised it’s called fossilisation. This is an error
that the learner doesn’t stop making.