Motivation

Defining Motivation
Motivation
The processes that account for an
individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence
of effort toward attaining a goal. Motivation is
another important factor in learning. Without
motivation, not much or no learning at all will
take place. Simply, motivation can be defined
as:
“Internal and external factors that stimulate
desire and energy in people to be continually
interested and committed to a job, role or subject,
or to make an effort to attain a goal.”

Roy E Moody says:
“The Greatest Motivational
act one person can do for
another is to listen.”

Motivation as a Process
Energy  Direction  Persistence
It is a process by which a
person’s efforts are energized, directed
and sustained towards attaining the goal.
Energy: a measure of intensity or drive
Direction: towards organizational goal
Persistence: exerting effort to achieve
goal

Six C’s of Motivation:
1. Challenges
2. Choices
3. Control
4. Collaboration
5. Consequences
6. Constructing meaning

Importance of Motivation in Language
Learning:
One of the most important individual differences
shaping language learning outcomes is learner
motivation. Given the considerable amount of time and
effort needed to achieve advanced language proficiency
in a second language, learners who are strongly
motivated are much more likely to succeed. For the
reasons, the issue of motivation has been a central one
in language learning research.
In Maslow opinion (1970), motivation has more
emphasis on the individual’s
“decisions, the choices people make as to what
experiences or goals they will approach or avoid, and the
degree of effort they will exert in that respect.”

Classes of Motivation
1. Intrinsic Motivation:
An internal stimulus that arouses one to
action. It is based on motive, which is always
intrinsic. A motive arouses one to do something. In
other words, people decide to do the action or
behaviour of their inherent interest toward the
activity, rather than because of the external
outcome.
Ex. If a learner wants to solve
a mathematical problem however
Difficult it is, he can solve it correctly.
He feels elated and with self-fulfillment.

2. Extrinsic Motivation:
An external stimulus to action. This
type of motivation is based on incentive.
This type of motivation comes from the
outside of the individual, that
is, from the external
environment.
It comes from the form
of praise, social approval,
high grades, medals and the
likes.

Motivation in Applied Linguistics
Motivation can be promoted
consciously, which is good news for
L2 teachers: it means that by
employing certain methods it is
possible to change learners’
motivation in a positive direction.
For this reason, skills in motivating
learners are an important aspect of
any teacher’s methodological
repertoire. Without motivation,
learner cannot perform or learn a
language.

Factors Influence Motivation
Six factors influence motivation in
language learning:
1. Attitudes
2. Beliefs about self
3. Goals
4. Involvement
5. Environmental support
6. Personal Characteristics

The Social Nature of L2 Motivation
Motivation to learn a second
language is very different from the
motivation to learn any other school
subject. This is because an L2 is not only
a communication code, but also a
representative of the L2 culture where it
is spoken.
Learning a second language
therefore always entails learning a
second culture to some degree.

As Williams (1994: 77) argues:
“The learning of a foreign language
involves far more than simply learning
skills, or a system of rules, or a
grammar; it involves an alteration in
self-image, the adoption of new social
and cultural behaviours and ways of
being, and therefore has a signiﬁcant
impact on the social nature of the
learner.”

Early Theories of Motivation
1
• Maslow’s need Hierarchy
2
• Macgregor’s theories X and
Y
3
• Herzberg’s two factors
Theory

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Needs were categories as five levels of
lower-higher-order needs.
1. Individual must satisfy lower-level needs
before they can satisfy higher order needs.
2. Satisfied needs will no longer motivate.
3. Motivating a person depends on knowing at
what level that a person is on the hierarchy.
4. Lower order (External): Physiological and
safety needs
5. Higher order (Internal): Social, Esteem, and
Self-actualization

Hierarchy of Needs
SA
Needs
Esteem Needs
Social Needs
Safety Needs
Physiological Needs

McGregor’s Theory X and Y
Theory X
Assume that workers have little ambition,
dislike work, avoid responsibility, and require
close supervision.
Theory Y
Assumes that workers can exercise self-
direction, desire, responsibility, and like to work.
Assumption
Motivation is maximized by participative
decision making, interesting jobs, and good
group relation.

Motivational Theories X & Y
SA
Esteem
Social
Safety &
Security
Physiological
Theory Y
a set of assumptions
of how to manage
individuals
motivated by higher
order need
Theory X
a set of assumptions
of how to manage
individuals motivated
by lower order needs

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
• Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction
are created by different factors.
Hygiene factors- Extrinsic
(Environmental) factors that create job
dissatisfaction
Motivation Factors- Intrinsic
(Psychological) factors that create job
satisfaction.

Motivation as a Dynamic Process
A second important aspect of L2 motivation
is that it is not stable and static but is rather in a
continuous process of change.
Dörnyei (2005) argues that motivation
undergoes a cycle that has at least three distinct
phases.
1. First Phase (Choice Motivation)
2. Executive Motivation
3. Motivational Retrospection

First Phase: (Choice Motivation)
First, motivation needs to be
generated. The motivational
dimension related to this initial
phase can be referred to as ‘choice
motivation’ because the
motivation that is generated then
leads to the selection of the goal or
task to be pursued.

The Most Important Motives to learn an
L2
With regard to ‘choice motivation’, the most
important components are the values and
attitudes related to the L2, the L2 speakers and
language learning in general. These were the
focal issues in Gardner’s (1985) inﬂuential
motivation theory, which placed the emphasis on
understanding the broad sociocultural nature of L2
motivation. Within this theory, three concepts in
particular have become well-known.
1. Integrative orientation
2. Instrumental orientation
3. Integrative motive

1. Integrative Orientation:
‘Integrative orientation’ reﬂects a positive
disposition toward the L2 group and the desire to
interact with and even become similar to valued
members of that community.
2. Instrumental Orientation:
‘Instrumental orientation’, where language
learning is primarily associated with the potential
pragmatic gains of L2 proﬁciency, such as getting a
better job or a higher salary.

3. Integrative Motive:
The ‘integrative motive’, which is a complex
construct made up of three main components:
(a) integrativeness (subsuming integrative
orientation, interest in foreign languages and
attitudes toward the L2 community);
(b)attitudes toward the learning situation
(comprising attitudes toward the teacher and the
course); and
(c) motivation (made up of motivational intensity,
desire and attitudes towards learning the
language).

Expectancy of success and Perceived
coping Potential
Another important aspect of choice motivation,
the ‘expectancy of success and perceived coping
potential’, refers to learners’ confidence in being able to
carry out the tasks associated with L2 learning.
A key element of this aspect, ‘linguistic self-
confidence’, has been identified as a significant
motivational subsystem in L2 acquisition; a plausible
explanation for this is that what matters in foreign
languages learning is not really the objective level of
one’s language abilities but rather the subjective
perceptions of assurance and trust in oneself. (This is
partly why some people will be able to communicate
with 100 words while others will not be able to even
with thousands of words.)

Beliefs affect Motivation:
It is also easy to see that the learners’
initial beliefs about L2 learning will affect
motivation, since unrealistic beliefs about the
amount of time it will take to attain a certain
level of language functioning will inevitably
lead to disappointment. Similarly, whether or
not the learner receives positive or negative
messages from the larger environment (for
example, media, friends) plays an important
role in reinforcing or blocking one’s initial
commitment.

Second Phase (Executive Motivation)
Second, the generated motivation needs to be
actively maintained and protected while the
particular action lasts. This motivational dimension
has been referred to as ‘executive motivation’
(or ‘volition’), and it is particularly relevant to
learning in classroom settings, where students are
exposed to a great number of distracting
inﬂuences, such as off-task thoughts, irrelevant
distractions from others, anxiety about the tasks
or physical conditions that make it difﬁcult to
complete the task.

Five Dimensions:
The most important aspect of ‘executive motivation’ is
related to the perceived quality of the learning experience.
This quality dimension can be described satisfactorily using
Schumann’s (1997) framework. Drawing on research in
neurobiology, Schumann (1997) argues that humans appraise
the stimuli they receive from their environment along ﬁve
dimensions:
‘Novelty’ (degree of unexpectedness/familiarity).
‘Pleasantness’ (attractiveness).
‘Goal or need signiﬁcance’ (whether the stimulus is
instrumental in satisfying needs or achieving goals).
‘Coping potential’ (whether the individual expects to be
able to cope with the event).
‘Self and social image’ (whether the event is compatible
with social norms and the individual’s self-concept).

Autonomy:
A second important constituent of executive
motivation, ‘autonomy’ (or as it is often called in
psychology, ‘self determination’), has also generated a
lot of research because there is a consensus that
autonomy and motivation go hand in hand, that is,
‘Autonomous language learners are by deﬁnition
motivated learners’.
In addition, research by Noels and colleagues
indicates that the teachers’ orientation towards autonomy,
namely whether they are ‘autonomy-supporting’ or
‘controlling’, also plays an important role in shaping
their students’ motivation, with the
former leading to increased student
involvement and commitment.

Third Phase (Motivational Retrospection)
Finally, there is a third phase
following the completion of the
action – termed ‘motivational
retrospection’ – which concerns
learners’ retrospective evaluation
of how things went. The way
students process their past
experiences in this retrospective
phase will determine the kind of
activities they will be motivated to
pursue in the future.

Final Self-Evaluation:
The last main phase of the motivational process,
‘motivational retrospection’, involves the process whereby learners
look back and evaluate how things went. Various characteristics will
strongly influence learners’ overall impressions about the past –
some learners will gain a positive impetus even from less-than-
positive experiences, whereas others may not be completely
satisfied even with outstanding performance. From a practical point
of view, however, the feedback, the praise and the grades that
learners receive are the most significant determinants of their final
self-evaluation. The nature of such rewards is too complex to cover
in detail here, but we might note that they can function as double-
edged swords – grades in particular. If there is too much emphasis
on them, getting good grades can become more important than
learning; as Covington (1999) concluded,
‘many students are grade driven, not to say, “grade grubbing”,
and this preoccupation begins surprisingly early in life’.

Made-to-Measure Strategies:
Knowledge of and skills in using various ‘learner
strategies’ also have an impact on learners’ motivation in all
three phases of the motivational process. Being aware of
certain ‘made-to-measure’ strategies (for example, a
computer devotee is told about an effective method of learning
an L2 through the use of computer games and tasks) might
give the necessary incentive to initiate learning. Then, while
learning, well-used strategies increase one’s self-conﬁdence
and lead to increased success, and – as the saying goes –
success breeds further success. Finally, one very important
function of the retrospective stage is for learners to consolidate
and extend the repertoire of personally useful strategies, which
will in turn function as a source of inspiration for future
learning. Indeed, strategies and motivation are very closely
linked.

Motivating Learners:
How can motivation research help classroom
practitioners? The most obvious way is by providing a list of
practical motivational techniques that teachers can apply. Dörnyei
(2005) uses the model (three phases of Motivation) as an
organizing framework and identiﬁes four principal aspects of
motivational teaching practice:
1. ‘Creating the basic motivational conditions’ (establishing
rapport with the students; fostering a pleasant and supportive
classroom atmosphere; developing a cohesive learner group
with appropriate group norms).
2. ‘Generating initial student motivation’ (enhancing the
learners’ L2-related values and attitudes; increasing the
learners’ expectancy of success; increasing the learners’ goal-
orientedness; making teaching materials relevant to the
learners; creating realistic learner beliefs).

Motivated Learners (continued)
3. ‘Maintaining and protecting motivation’ (making
learning stimulating; setting speciﬁc learner goals;
presenting tasks in a motivating way; protecting the
learners’ self-esteem and increasing their self-
conﬁdence; allowing learners to maintain a positive
social image; creating learner autonomy; promoting
cooperation among the learners; promoting self-
motivating strategies).
4. ‘Encouraging positive retrospective self-
evaluation’ (providing motivational feedback;
promoting motivational attributions; increasing learner
satisfaction; offering rewards and grades in a
motivating manner).

Pedagogical Implications: the Intersection
of Styles, Strategies and Motivation
Steps for Style- and Strategies-based Instruction
Research has found that it is possible to teach learners to
enhance their strategy use, that is, to help them to be more conscious
and systematic about the strategies that they already use and to add
new strategies to their repertoire.
The following are steps that teachers can take to make their
instruction style- and strategies-based, along with motivating learners
to engage themselves in this type of awareness-raising:
Raise learner awareness about learning style preferences and
language learner strategies at the outset in order to generate
motivation to be more conscious about style preferences and more
proactive about the use of language strategies.
Find out which styles the learners favour, and which strategies the
students may already use or may wish to add to their repertoire.
Suggest and model what ‘style-stretching’ might look like, as well as
modelling new strategies.

Pedagogical Implications: the Intersection
of Styles, Strategies and Motivation
Provide a rationale for strategy use, since learners are likely
to apply strategies or develop new ones only if they become
convinced about their usefulness.
Provide guided exercises or experiences to help students
put the strategies into practice.
Encourage students to enhance their current strategy
repertoire.
Encourage students to be willing to use such strategies even
when it may mean taking risks.
Highlight cross-cultural differences in how strategies
(especially communicative strategies) might be employed.
Organize ‘sharing sessions’: From time to time ask students
to share information about their learning style preferences and
about the strategies they have generated or found particularly
useful.

The Use of Style and Strategy Surveys
There are advantages to having learners actively
diagnose for themselves their style and language
strategy preferences, as well as their ‘motivational
temperature’. There are various published learning style
surveys available, such as the Learning Style Survey
(Cohen, Oxford and Chi, 2002b), which is more focused
on language learning than some of the other instruments.
In addition, teachers can administer language strategy
questionnaires that cover strategy use in terms of:
Skill areas
Communication strategies
Strategies classiﬁed according to their cognitive,
metacognitive, affective or social function.
.

“Things will Come Automatically”
A key factor is to make the
interrelationship of styles, strategies and
motivation a matter of explicit discussion early
on, rather than to assume that ‘things will
come automatically’ or that learners know
what to do in each instance. If learners are
made aware of the importance of these
individual difference variables, and are given
tools for dealing with them, they are likely to
take more responsibility of their own learning
and will adopt those attitudes and techniques
that characterize the good language learner.

Self Motivating Strategies:
‘Self-motivating strategies’ may play a role in
empowering learners to be more committed and
enthusiastic language learners. Even under adverse
conditions in certain classrooms and without any teacher
assistance, some learners are more successful at
staying committed to the goals they have set for
themselves than others are.
How do they do it? The answer is that they apply
certain self management skills as a means for
overcoming environmental distractions or distracting
emotional or physical needs/states; in short, they
motivate themselves. And if they can do so, surely others
can do so as well, particularly if teachers and other
language educators provide some coaching.

Five main classes of Self-Motivating
Strategies
Dörnyei (2001b) draws on Kuhl’s (1987) and Corno
and Kanfer’s (1993) research to suggest that self-
motivating strategies are made up of five main classes,
which are listed below:
1. Commitment control strategies for helping to preserve
or increase the learners’ original goal commitment:
 Keeping in mind favourable expectations or positive
incentives and rewards (for example, a film director
fantasizing about receiving an Oscar).
 Focusing on what would happen if the original
intention failed.
2. ‘Metacognitive control strategies’ for monitoring and
controlling concentration, and for curtailing unnecessary
procrastination (the action of delaying and postponing
something), focusing on the first steps to take.

Strategies
3. ‘Satiation control strategies’ for eliminating boredom
and adding extra attraction or interest to the task:
 Adding a twist to the task (for example, reordering
certain sequences).
 Using fantasy to liven up the task (for example,
treating the task as a game, creating imaginary
scenarios).
4. ‘Emotion control strategies’ for managing disruptive
emotional states or moods, and for generating
emotions that will be conducive to implementing one’s
intentions:
 Self-encouragement.
 Using relaxation and meditation techniques.

Strategies
5. ‘Environmental control strategies’ making the
environment an ally in the pursuit of a difficult
goal:
 Eliminating negative environmental
influences (such as sources of interference:
for example, noise, friends; and
environmental temptations: for example, a
packet of cigarettes).
 Creating positive environmental influences
(for example, making a promise or a public
commitment to do or not to do something,
asking friends to help you or not to allow you
to do something).

Conclusion:
The individual difference variables of learning style,
strategies and motivation are interrelated in numerous ways. If
students with certain style preferences succeed in finding learning
strategies that particularly suit them (for example, an auditory
learner taking the initiative to tape-record portions of a class
session and then playing them back in order to review vocabulary
and fix the words more solidly in memory), such actions may also
enhance their interest in the task and expectancy of success,
which will in turn increase their motivation to complete the task
successfully and will ideally have a positive influence on their
performance with other tasks as well. Similarly, effective and well-
personalized communication strategies (such as when the
extroverted learner keeps a conversation going with a well-placed
paraphrase when the target-language word for, say, ‘insight’
escapes her) can increase the learners’ linguistic self-confidence
and generate increased satisfaction in their L2 use.

Conclusion:
Finally, a teacher who keeps learner self-
motivating strategies ﬁrmly in mind can check
periodically to make sure that these and other
strategies are in the learners’ repertoire and that
everything is being done to assist learners in keeping
their motivational level high. Given the numerous
other pedagogical issues to consider in the
classroom, teachers may not feel that there is time to
engage in this kind of top-down motivation, style and
strategy planning for a given course. In reality, it may
be just such planning which makes the teaching of a
language course more productive for both the teacher
and the students, as well as more enjoyable.

Motivation

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Motivation (20)

More from Tahir Awan (13)

Recently uploaded (20)

Motivation