On Learning Motivation in English Teaching.doc

On Learning Motivationin English TeachingAbstract: Learning Motivation is one of the most dynamic factors which have great effect on language learning. This paper discusses it in five parts.Part one discusses the definition of Motivation. Motivation is a process that a person gets an idea or thought and pushes and maintains the cognitive and behavior of ones goal.Part two introduces the perspectives of Learning Motivation from behaviorism, humanism and cognition theory. On the one hand, Behaviorism emphasizes the reward systems as the most effective way of motivation. Thus, the significance of behavior theory about motivation is that the teacher enhances the students motivation to adopt the way of rewarding or punishing. Obviously, behaviorism studies peoples extrinsic motivation. On the other hand, Humanistic Views of motivation is in terms of meeting basic needs and cognitive perspective is that motivation is concerned with issues as the reason why the students succeed or fail. Humanists and cognition theory study peoples intrinsic motivation.Part three introduces the three types of English Learning Motivation from different points.Part four illustrates the relation between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. They pay a part to each other.Part five deals with the cultivation of Learning Motivation of the students. The language teacher should have a good influence on students to pursue and give the feedback to reinforce their inner drive and confidence. Thus, students will become major conductors, making use of their potentials and enhance their study results.Key words: motivation; feeling; subject of teaching; feedback; goal setting摘要：学习动机是影响语言学习最具能动性的因素之一。本文将分五个部分进行讨论。第一部分讨论动机的定义。动机是一个产生念头，并推动和维持某一目标前进的认知和行为的过程。第二部介绍行为主义、人本主义、认知主义关于动机的三种观点，一方面行为主义强调鼓励机制是激发动机的最有效的方法，因此行为主义关于动机和理论的意义就在于教师采取奖励或惩罚的方法，增强学生的学习动机。很明显，行为主义研究的是人的外部动机；另一方面，人本主义心理研究的满足个人的基本需要的观点与认知论中归因论即为学生的成功与失败寻求原因，是从不同角度研究人的内在动机。第三部分介绍英语学习动机的三种类型。第四部分阐述内部动机与外部动机的关系，他们相互作用。第五部分论述学习动机的培养。教师应建立恰当的学习目标运用反馈，以增强学生的内部动力和自信心，认清学生是学习的主体地位，充分利用学生自信的潜能，增强学习效果。关键词：动机；情感；教学主体；反馈；目标的设定 ContentsAbstract.摘要.ContentsIntroduction.11. Definition of Motivation.12. Motivation in educational psychology.32.1 Behaviorism (motivation as reinforcement).32.2 Humanistic views of motivation.5 2.3 Cognitive theory .73. The types of English Learning Motivation.83.1 Integrative motivation and instrument motivation.83.2 Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.93.3 Achievement motivation.104. The relation between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation .115. Cultivation of Learning Motivation of the students.135.1Noticing the emotional factors in teaching145.2 Recognizing the students as subject in class.16 5.3 Supplying information feedback to enhance motivation185.4 Setting up goals for enhancing Learning motivation18Conclusion.19Bibliography21Acknowledgement22Introduction Motivation is a psychological orientation that people get the itch forknowledge and get to understand the world. It stimulates student to take part in the activities and maintain this state and toward a specialgoal. Learning motivation is a crucialaspect in foreign language learning. As early as 1790s, researchers have found that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning. In English teaching, we often notice such a fact that at the very beginning, a great number of people are actively involved in learning a foreign language, but as times goes on, their enthusiasm is diminishing and the number of the learners is decreasing. This kind of phenomenon is a commoncase. It is a difficult task for the teacher to change this fact. It is believed that the key to improve is to create and fosterthe students interest in language learning and to maintain their motivation Duringteaching, we also find that manylearners have succeeded in language learning, without much contact withmotive speakers or without anyexperience abroad. Why can they learn it so well? As for this kind of questions, it is necessary for us to make preliminary researchinto motivation in language learning in the following.1. Definition of MotivationWhat is motivation? Variousstudies show that motivation is rather difficult to define. Motivation (Brown, 1987) is commonly thought of as an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action.1 More specifically, human beings universally have needs or drives that are more or less innate, yet their intensity is environmentally conditioned. Linguistic psychologists interpret motivation from different aspects. David Ausubel(1964)has identified the six desires or needs of human organism which under-gird the construct of motivation, (1)The need for exploration, for seeing “the other side of the mountain”, for probing the unknown, (2) The need for manipulation, for operating-to use Skinners term on the environment and causing change, (3)the need for activity, for movement and exercise, both physical and mental, (4)The need for stimulation, the need to be process and internalize the results of exploration, manipulation, activity, and stimulation, to resolve contradiction, to quest for solution to problems and for self-consistent systems of knowledge, (6) finally, the need for ego enhancement, for the self to be known and to be accepted and approached of by others.2 While all this kinds of need related to the goal there appears motivation .When learning motivation formed, students have a thirst for achieving the goals .But it does say that there are goal there is motivation. In fact motivation is a process that people get a idea or thought and push and maintain the cognitive and behavior of ones goal. It includes learners psychological factors and also includes learners efforts (It is a positive attitude) that have been taken to achieve this goal. Goals and aspirations can only be called motivation tendency. Without a positive attitudeit is not a complete motivation. When motivation tendency formed, it will trigger the individuals acts. It surely includes learns positive attitude. Individual produce a positive emotional response to the initiative. A powerful impact will mobilize individuals intellectual factors. Individual will do an effective behavior towards the goals. 2. Motivation in educational psychology From the development of individual, children pay more attention to teachers reward. In the early period, extrinsic motivation has important effect on learning. Then, intrinsic motivation is growing. In the psychology extrinsic motivation is field of behaviorism study, while intrinsic motivation is humanistic views and cognitive theory. As follows there are three views about motivation. 2.1 Behaviorism (motivation as reinforcement) The study of motivation begins with the behaviorisms animals behavior. Psychologist tried to explain motivation in terms of how animals behaved in order to meet their basic biological needs, how this behavior was reinforced when those needs were met and how this reinforcement spread to other events and activities that occurred at the same time. Thus, a hungry dog that hears the sound of food would be motivated to seek food when hearing a bell on subsequent occasions. In this way, human motivation to learn any particular thing was accounted for in terms of what biological needs were being met during the early learning years and what kind of reward or reinforcement was provided for early attempts to learn. It is easy to see how this kind of approach gave rise to modern behaviorism with its emphasis upon the nature and scheduling of reward systems as the most effective way of motivating desired behavior. Thus, a behaviorist would tend to consider motivation largely in terms of external forces. The 1990s have, therefore, seen a welcome rekindling of interest in motivation in foreign and second language learning with many writers seeking alternative ways of conceptualizing motivation and setting new research agendas. In one recent attempt to make sense of the different components involved in second language motivation, Dornyei (1994a) proposes a three-level categorization. In Dornyeis model, the language level encompasses various orientations and motives related to aspects of the second language, such as the culture and the community, and the usefulness of the language. These will influence the goals learners set and choices they make. Dornyeis learning level involves individual characteristics that the learner brings to the learning task. Key features of this level are need for achievement and self-confidence. Finally, the situation level includes components related to the course, the teacher and the group dynamics. Dornyeis formulation is helpful as it highlights a point that motivation is a multifaceted construct which will be affected by situational factors. 3 Teachers behavior, personality, teaching ways and relationship between the teacher and students are directly contract with the results of the teaching cooperation and competition between the students that are all concerned about the realization of the teaching goals. It is the psychological basis of Computer Assisted Instruction to emphasize the extrinsic motivation, that is, the computer judge whether what the students so is right or wrong in order to reinforce the students learning motivation. The significance of behavior theory about motivation is that the teacher enhances the students learning motivation to adopt the way of rewarding or punishing. Of course the teacher may pay too much attention tothe students extrinsic drive and ignoring students inner driver. In additions, too much reward or punishment would make bad effects for the students growing.2.2Humanistic views of motivation Humanistic approaches emphasize the importance of the inner world of the learner and place the individuals thoughts, feelings and emotions at the forefront of all human development. There are aspects of the learning process that are often unjustly neglected, yet they are vitally important if we are to understand human learning in its totality. We will therefore begin by considering some major aspects of humanism, before linking such a view with social interactions. Human behavior has been explained by some psychologists in terms of meeting basic needs. We experience certain drives to meet these needs, and we are driven to act in particular ways in order toreduce these drives .Perhaps the best known exponent of this idea was Abraham Maslow. Maslow argued for two distinct categories of needs, deficiency (or maintenance) needs, and beings (growth) needs. The first four layers represent deficiency needs. These are directly related to a persons psychological or biological balance, and include such physiological requirements ad food, water, sleep and the absence of pain; they also include the needs for security, belonging, and self-esteem. Maslow considered that if these needs neither were nor met, or their fulfillment was disrupted in some way, then it would become difficult, or even impossible for a person to fulfill needs further up the hierarchy. Thus children who are hungry or in pain (the basic psychological needs) will find their lives dominated by this and will be unable to concentrate on, say, meeting their aesthetic needs. Similarly, children who feel insecure, or who have low self-esteem, are unlikely to be able to give their full attention to learning in class.Being needs are represented by the top three levels in Maslows system. These are related to the fulfillment of individual potential; in terms of cognitive and aesthetic development and the attainment of self-actualization (realizing ones full potential). Few people ever realize their full potential or achieve self-actualization, the highest point in the needs hierarchy, because their lower order needs tend to remain unsatisfied. Moreover, being needs is considered to require a particular kind of nurturing environment in which people can express themselves and explore. There is also an apparent contradiction between the two sets of needs. Whereas deficiency needs require safe, secure environment which is aimed at producing a state of equilibrium, being needs can drive the individual into potentially dangerous territory, where a degree of tensionand stresscan be most productive. 3 2.3 Cognitive theory From a cognitive perspective, the factor that is of central importance is the choice, that is, people have choice over the way in which they behave and, therefore, have control over their actions. This is in marked contrast to a behaviorist view which sees our actions as at the mercy of external forces such as rewards. To make an informed choice we need to be aware of the probable outcomes of what we decide to do. This enables us to set goals for ourselves, and we then decide to act in certain ways in order to achieve these goals. Thus from a cognitive perspective, motivation is concerned with such issues as why people decide to act in certain ways and what factors influence the choice they make. It also involves decisions as to the amount of effortpeople are prepared to expend in attempting to achieve their goals. The role of the teacher thus becomes one of helping and enabling learners to make suitable decisions. It is famous forAttribution theory. Weiner suggested that people tend to refer to four main sets of attributions for their perceived successes and failures in life: (a)ability, (b)effort, (c)luck, (d)the perceived difficulty of the task with which they are faced . Most of the evidence in sort of these elements has come from controlled laboratory studies rather than open-ended investigations in naturalistic settings. However, there has been an accumulating body of literature which suggests that these are common elements in most peoples attribution systems. One of the most important applications of attribution theory has been “reattribution training”(Hastings1994&Craske1988).3 This consists of changing peoples attributions so that instead of viewing failure as due to stable and uncontrollable factors, they begin to see it as controllable and unstable. In other words, they begin to see that they can have control over their learning outcomes. Attribution theory is very important model of learner motivation in psychology for Language Teaching. It is crucial for teachers to analysis the attribution of the students to forester the students learning motivation.3. The types of English Learning Motivation We have talked a lot of motivation theory. There are several types of learning motivation according to the different degree.3.1 integrative motivation and instrument motivationGardener in his socio-educational model makes the now well-known distinction between integrative and instrument orientation in motivation. Orientation is not the same thing as motivation, but represents reasons for studding the language. Integrative motivation also called combined motivation. Learner who takes this motivation wants to meet and communicate with members of English Language Community. Learner not only learns the language, but also they have to join into the culture of the English country and its life style. Instrumental motivation emphasizes its actual purpose for learning foreign language. There is no need to integrate into foreign community. The learner of instrumental motivation do not last too long to learn and they have choice to learn one aspect or several aspect to learn foreign language. For example, a learner learning language for reading article of science and technology, for, translating some essay, for findinga special job and so on. Once a learner achieved his or her goal, his or her motivation will be disappeared. Some psychologists think achievement through integrative motivation is more than that through instrument motivation. But sometimes it is mot true. Students having instrument motivation is to find a job or to pass exams (just like TOEFL). They pay more attention to the practicality of language.Integrate motivationand instrument motivation is looked as important element in the study of foreign language learning. But which can lead students to learn better? The resultof actual investigation are fully different from the result that of laboratory.3.2 Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation Motivation can be divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation emphasizes learners feeling in English learning. Intrinsic motivation comes from learners interestin the activity they have to do. Learner themselves give rise to intrinsic motivation. The activity is the aim that the learner pursuit. For example, learners interest, curiosity, or they want to show themselves. The purpose of the learner is to get English knowledge. They are interested in English. The learner is satisfied with the English language learning. Cognitive psychologist believes that people want to get knowledge by nature insistently to pursuit the value of knowledge and to understand the thing around them. In the English teaching, teacher should make an attempt to call forth the students intrinsic motivation enabling the learners attitude to improve.3.3 Achievement motivation Achievement motivation only comes into being in the human activity. It is the main motivation of the foreign language learning classroom. Learner believes English is valuable so the