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Teach English in Hou Zhen - Weifang Shi

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Motivation… A term which we can hear a lot. It sounds quite simple as we hear it so many times in different situations, and from different people, yet it is so complex to activate motivation. So, what is motivation? According to linguists motivation is defined as a desire to gain an objective, combined with the energy to work towards that objective. Some linguists explained the types of motivation as integrative and instrumental. And some others explained them as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation to be a part of an activity because that activity is enjoyable to do. Extrinsic motivation refers to the actions that are performed to get some instrumental aims like earning a reward or stopping a punishment. Motivation is defined as desire that might be a challenge to reach. Thus, how can we motivate our students? First of all, as for me the most important role is institutions` role. Schools and language courses have to supply a language learning program which is appropriate in level, well-designed, and includes sufficient, interesting, up to date learning materials. It is not easy to make students learn with boring, old, insufficient materials. As new generation is into technology, teachers will suffer to make their students motivated without online materials, intearctive games, and so on. Some instutitions choose cheap books and online materials, but this does not help teachers to teach and learners to learn. I think schools have to choose the best materials as much as they can. Secondly, I think school atmosphere-climate has a crucial role. If there are beautifully designed and decorated classrooms, if literally school, classroom ‘smell English’, and people around the students have a desire to learn, students will smell English as an attractive flower. Not only schools but also parents have vital role in learning. If a student’s parents know English, speak it at home, watch something in English, even at least with English subtitles, automatically student feels the English learning atmosphere and learning a language is not considered as an ‘alien’. Thirdly, may be one the most important factors of motivation are teacher and the learner. An English proverb goes like that; 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. Yes that’s partly true. Of course there will be some students who will not be motivated whatever you do and try because of various reasons such as family problems, behavior or attitude problems. However, teachers have an important role in motivation. We know that some football, basketball coaches, political party leaders, or religious leaders inspire people deeply and motivate them with witty words. As a result of this, these people win the games, elections, or people’s hearts. For instance, when Turkey was occupied by many countries just right after the World War I, Ataturk, father of Turks, started an action and defeated many strong, rich countries in spite of lack of man power and modern weapons. He once said ‘ I do not order you to attack the enemy. I order you to die’. As we can understand from this example, teachers can do their best to motivate the learners. Thus, teachers have to be well-qualified, lovely, friendly, smart. If a person is teaching just to earn money, his/her classes will not be close to ideal classes. To sum up, motivation term is not an easy thing as it sounds, but it is a very multi-dimentional and sophisticated target to reach. It is affected by schools’ language learning programs, environment, parents, teachers, and of course learners. It might be easy to motivate some people with a teacher’s big smile, but also it might be a challenge to motivate some learners with trying zillion things. However, if it is reached, learning happens as in spring trees blossom.


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