Teach English in Wangmiao Zhen - Jining Shi

The idea of motivating students or learners date as far back as the history of teaching and learning is concern. Studies have proven that most learners at their early stages or beginners pickup courses they are not interested in or do not see the importance at the moment, since most parents choose for them at this stage as such, they need to be motivated to learn. The remarkable thing about motivation is that, since learners are of different ages and groups, we have different methods and ways to motivate them. Motivation can be defined as; a psychological feature that evokes a desire to achieve a certain goal. Students have different goals on their studies and teachers spend most time with them and should be able to motivate them towards achieving their goals. Motivation concern itself with the will to work, It seeks to know the incentive for work and tries to find out the ways and means where by their realization can be helped and encouraged. People are complex and uniquely different (What motivate Tom may not motivate John). Most successful leaders today have learned to understand the concept of human motivations and are now able to use that understanding to achieve higher standards of subordinate work performance. Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as; the intensity of desire and reward value of the goal. These factors are the reasons one has for behaving a certain way. An example is a student that spends extra time studying for a test because he/she want a better grade in the class. In trying to present our essay on motivating students, we would look at motivation as an essential tool in the teaching and learning process. We will begin by looking at why students should be motivated; Learners or students should be motivated so that they can perform at their best because when they are motivated, they can express their fears and desires with the teacher. Also motivation help build their self confidence and pride as such overcome their complex and challenges especially students who are demoralize. More so, motivation help learners develop a spirit of positive competition among themselves and this help them pull out their best performances. Knowing what motivation can do, it will be good to encourage and motivate students at all levels. Furthermore, how can we then motivate our students or learners? This can be done by changing or switching our teaching methods and materials to match up with our students. A teacher should develop a good relationship or rapport with her students, and this can be done by being flexible with them and letting them see you some time as their friend, playmate as well as their teacher. Also students or learners can be motivated by being sanctioned as this also reinforce them. But note should be taken that we are motivating them to push their abilities as such the target must be achievable if you use sanctions against unachievable target the learner becomes demotivated. We can as well appreciate and reward students when they work well, this can be done by sometimes reading out their names or putting it out on the board in other to motivate them to work hard. Motivation can equally be done by developing positive peer relationship among them. This would help improve learner self concept of each other. Furthermore we should never try to talk down on the students as using negative words can play down on their self esteem. Instead we should talk more of their strength. They should understand that not being best in other things do not make them failures but they equally have other strengths that are equally important. After knowing how to motivate students, we should also look at the importance of motivating students; 1. Motivation clarifies their beliefs and goals. 2. Motivation develop their self concept and improve performance 3. Motivation improve their cognitive and processing skills 4. Motivation equally improves their persistence and effort as well as the students’ initiative. Finally, motivating students should be a teacher’s role in the milieu of education so that every student will find it comfortable and satisfactory to learn. You do not have to be the best paid teacher or the school head in order to have a motivated class. You just need to realize the wonders that motivation performs on learners’ performance. A motivated class makes a motivated teacher. SOURCES CONSULTED Timothy Keter, impact study lead, Eneza Education. enezaeducation.com