of learning English for most of our students.

All of the conditions that we know contribute

to successful second language acquisition are
lacking in most EFL contexts: there just isnt
enough English input in the environment, there
probably arent enough opportunities for
interaction with English speakers, there usually
arent enough strong role models promoting the
learning of English, and there may not be
widespread enough social acceptance for the
idea of becoming proficient in English. Because
of these adverse conditions, a learner has to
have extraordinary motivation in order to
succeed at learning English!
What does the research on
motivation tell us?
The research on motivation defines motivation
as an orientation toward a goal. (This
orientation may be positive, negative, or
ambivalent.) Motivation provides a source of
energy that is responsible for why learners
decide to make an effort, how longthey are
willing to sustain an activity, how hard they are
going to pursue it, and how connected they feel
to the activity.
M
otivation has been called the
neglected heart of language
teaching. As teachers, we often forget
that all of our learning activities are filtered
through our students motivation. In this
sense, students control the flow of the
classroom. Without student motivation,
there is no pulse, there is no life in the
class. When we learn to incorporate direct
approaches to generating student
motivation in our teaching, we will
become happier and more successful
teachers.
Why is motivation so
important in EFL?
The issue of motivation, particularly in EFL
settings, is so important that other
considerations about teaching methodology
seem to pale in comparison. It is important to
think about motivation as the essence of
language teaching because of the stark realities
Generating Student
Motivation
Michael Rost
Series Editor of WorldView
www.longman.com/worldview
Copyright 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
WorldView Motovation Monograph.qxd 2/23/06 10:50 AM Page 1
only language learning is somehow
connected to a learners passion. Passion, in
this sense, means a persons central goals in life,
the things the learner cares about most, the
things that move him or her emotionally. I
dont mean that a learner needs to become
passionate about learning English in order to
succeed. Rather, the learner needs to find a way
to connect English learning to his or her real
passion in life.
The teacher can help learners to bring their
passion into the classroom in several ways. One
is by introducing hot elements in the
classroom music, movies, fads, current
topics, personalities, games, and so on in
order to trigger learners real interests. The
teacher can then use these triggers to build a
class culture. If we introduce, or if we allow the
learners themselves to bring in, samples of
current songs, clippings of famous people, or
photos or video clips, we invite greater
engagement in the classroom.
Another way of helping learners find their
passion is by organizing class activities around
the theme of self-expression. There are a
number of approaches here: personalized tasks,
idea journals, speaking circles, interactive
questionnaires. When learners realize that the
content of the class is their personal lives, and
that the teacher responds to them as people,
not just as language learners, we invite a deeper
level of commitment and motivation.
A third way of generating passion is through
the psychological principle of immediacy
using yourself as a model of enthusiasm and
motivation for learning!
The second layer of
motivation: Changing your
reality
In virtually every language learning setting, but
particularly in EFL settings, learners cannot
make and sustain sufficient progress in the L2
because they do not receive enough instruction,
Because igniting and sustaining a source of
positive energy is so vital to ultimate success,
everythingthe teacher does in the language
classroom has two goals. One is, of course, to
further language development, and the other is
to generate motivation for continued learning.
Much of the research on motivation has
confirmed the fundamental principle of
causality: motivation affects effort, effort
affects results, positive results lead to an
increase in ability. What this suggests, of
course, is that by improving students
motivation we are actually amplifying their
ability in the language and fueling their ability
to learn.
What specific approaches
can teachers take to
generate motivation?
A number of initiatives in SLA research over
the past decade have helped clarify our
understanding of motivation and the specific
psychological and behavioral components of
motivation that we as teachers can influence. In
preparing for teaching classes on TESOL
methodology, I have read the work of
researchers such as Gardner and Lambert, Deci
and Ryan, Crookes and Schmidt, Williams and
Burdon, Dornyei and Skehan, and
Czikzenmiyahli in order to synthesize an
approach to generating learner motivation in
EFL settings. We can identify three levels or
layers of motivation in language learning that
are operational, or accessible to direct
influence by the teacher. To the extent that a
teacher can tap into any or all of these layers,
he or she is more likely to become a
motivating teacher.
The first layer of motivation:
Finding your passion
The first layer or the central core of motivation
is what might be called finding your passion.
I would argue that all successful learning not
2
Copyright 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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not nearly enough attention in class, not nearly
enough input or meaningful interaction or
opportunities for serious output. Some studies
in language immersion have estimated that a
typical learner needs a minimum of four hours
a week of quality contact with a language in
order to make progress. Even if this estimate is
not true for all learners, it is clear to most EFL
teachers that learners need more language
instruction than we can provide in our
classrooms. Learners need more quality
instruction input, interaction, and
opportunities for meaningful output not
only to make progress, but in order to maintain
a sufficiently strong connection to the language
and to build their own motivation for learning.
In my own language teaching and in my
materials development, I now consider it a
major part of my job to help students find
opportunities for engaging learning tasks
outsidethe classroom. Helping learners find
quality homework is essential to maintain
quality learning in the classroom. The ideas are
endless: direct students to quality language
learning websites (or build your own, as many
teachers have done), make available quality
audio, video, and multimedia learning sources,
develop a small library of accessible readers
and supplementary materials and self-access
quizzes, worksheets and games. Spending
classroom time to help students select, share,
and evaluate their out-of-class work with
English is just as important as covering a lesson
in the textbook.
Helping students change their reality means
moving them toward seeing language learning
in a different way. It means helping them take
simple, self-directed steps to make choices
about learning. The first step is the most
important, because its the one that can ignite
this layer of motivation.
The third layer of motivation:
Connecting to learning activities
Connecting refers to the engagement of
intention, attention, and memory in the activity
itself. All teachers want their students to
connect with the learning activities we prepare,
yet we often fail to take concrete steps that will
lead to better connection. Here are a few
connecting principles that I try to employ in
my own teaching materials, such as
WorldView:
Use personalized warm ups to lead into an
activity. This creates relevance an essential
condition for memory to work effectively.
Aim to get all students involved in the
warm up.
Make each learning activity as vivid and
tangible as possible. Use provocative topics.
Include visual aids (pictures, charts) and
tangible references (games, boards, index
cards) to engage students attention. Provide
variety in your learning activities so that
students can try out different learning styles
(interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical, etc.).
Make sure that each learner is involved, and
everyone has an intention in every activity.
Assign roles in pair and group activities.
Monitor as closely as you can to be sure that
each student, especially the shyer and weaker
ones, remains active. Its important to have
everyone on board.
Include inductive learning in your lesson. Be
sure that students have an opportunity to
discover things on their own grammar
points, pragmatic patterns, new vocabulary.
Give students a chance to reflect. Its always
easier to teach deductively through direct
presentations, but discovery learning is more
meaningful and more permanent.
Provide feedback on all levels of language
progress. Progress in language involves more
than just gradual mastery of grammar and
vocabulary. Give feedback on elements of
performance that affect students motivation:
their success in an activity and their level of
engagement.
3 Copyright 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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M ic h a e l R o st h a s b e e n
a c tive in te a c h in g a n d
te a c h e r tra in in g fo r o ve r
2 0 y e a rs. H e h a s ta u g h t in
We st A fric a , J a p a n ,
So u th e a st A sia , En g la n d
a n d th e U . S. H e sp e c ia lize s
in o ra l la n g u a g e
d e ve lo p m e n t a n d le a rn e r
stra te g ie s, a n d h a s a
p a rtic u la r in te re st in lin k s
b e twe e n se lf-a c c e ss
le a rn in g a n d th e
c la ssro o m . H e h a s w ritte n
se ve ra l a rtic le s a n d b o o k s
o n te a c h e r tra in in g ,
in c lu d in g Te a c h in g a n d
R e se a rc h in g Liste n in g
Lo n g m a n , 2 0 0 2 ) .
M ic h a e l R o st is Se rie s
Ed ito r o f Wo rld Vie w , th e
n e w 4 -le ve l a d u lt se rie s
fro m Lo n g m a n . H e is a lso
p rin c ip a l a u th o r o f th e
m u ltim e d ia c o u rse
Lo n g m a n En g lish
In te ra c tive .
For more information about WorldView,
visit the WorldView website at
www.longman.com/worldview
Conclusion: Becoming a
motivating teacher
A great deal of research has been done in the
area of motivation, and why it is so fundamental
to second language learning. The underlying
issues related to motivation are complex, but it is
clear that every persons motivation to learn is
flexible rather than fixed. As teachers, we can
directly influence our students motivation about
learning English.
The three layers of motivation is one way of
conceptualizing how a teacher can influence each
student. If we can make progress with our
students in each of these layers, we can become
more motivating teachers and bring the heart of
language teaching into our classrooms.
Copyright 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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