Teach English in Gaoze Zhen - Rizhao Shi

The motivational factor is one of the most important aspects when a student enrolls in a school or starts a course. The negligence typical of the demotivated student can be accompanied by other behaviors which are complex to manage. As a result, it is very important to motivate students. During our youth, we all developed our values and rules that shaped our personal way of think, feel and act. Moreover, daily problems, rebellion, suffering, loneliness, lack of perspective soon or later will occur in our lives. The way we dealt with these things and wherever we had success or not will play an essential role in our self-motivation development. But what to do if a student has not really accomplished to build this value inside him/herself? I like the idea spread by movies, books and good stories (but even more in the real-world life) that "it' s never too late". So, as teachers, one of our most important jobs is to promote motivation in our students. As we said, motivation often comes as a result of progress experiences that trained our consciousness. But sometimes we perform incredibly great when some new condition appears. Is there only one kind of motivation? Of course, trying to describe and analyze the complicated feeling/value/state of the motivation it's a pretty hard task. However, we can generally distinguish two types of motivation: Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding. Basically, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external reward. Essentially, the behavior itself is its own reward. Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment. In this case, you engage in a behavior not because you enjoy it or because you find it satisfying, but in order to get something in return or avoid something unpleasant. We can make some examples that can fit perfectly with some students categories: an employer willing to learn English in order to ask and achieve a promotion (Extrinsic); a student who's particularly curious about the English way to express concepts and thoughts (Intrinsic). How we can do it? As we said, Intrinsic motivation comes from within the person. So it's clear to say that developing it directly in our students it's a very hard (if not impossible) task. However, Extrinsic motivation comes from outside the student and can be 'activated' with external rewards, a very useful tool. Before continuing it's important to remember that excessive external rewards for an already internally rewarding behavior can lead to a reduction in intrinsic motivation. This doesn't necessarily say that extrinsic motivation is a bad thing. In fact, it can be particularly helpful in situations where a person needs to complete a task that they find unpleasant. External rewards can produce participation in something in which the students had no initial interest or can be used to motivate them to acquire new skills or knowledge. In a class context, when these early knowledge have been learned, students usually become more intrinsically motivated for the rest of course. Positive praise and feedbacks can additionally increase our students' internal motivation. More examples can be: underlining the positiveness of good grades for a future career reason, talking about how good is to understand our favorite English TV-show or simply highlight how quick someone can become the best student of the lesson. These can be surprisingly effective methods to build up motivation in our students. A little conclusion. Within the context of learning a language, the main common point between the two types is that both produce a good performance and behavior in our students. Comprehend the differences, how they can affect our students, and when/how to build up them is as essential as knowing the subject we are teaching.