The 4 Principles of Motivation in an EFL Classroom
The main goal of teaching foreign languages at school is the development of communicative competence, the development of the personality of a child who is willing and able to participate in intercultural communication in a foreign language and is further capable of self-improvement. But the quality of achieving the goal depends, first of all, on the motivation and needs of the individual, his motivation. It is the motivation that causes purposeful activity, determines the choice of tools and techniques, their ordering to achieve the goal. When students start studying in a foreign language, not a single teacher can complain about their lack of interest in the subject. Still, already in the 6th-grade, interest is significantly weakened, and 86% of students lose it in the 8th grade. The reason is as follows. Teaching is knowledge. You can not oblige a person to know something. He can be interested. Therefore, the problem of motivation for learning is the main one at all stages of teaching foreign languages.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate MUHAMMAD S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Psychologists, studying the nature of the motivating forces and their regulation in learning, have established a complex structure of the motivational sphere. It is well known that there is no activity without a motive. Meanwhile, when mastering a foreign language culture, it is essential what incentives motivate the student to carry out operations. The task of the teacher in the formation of internal motivation among students is to give driving forces to valuable motives, and invaluable motives (antimotives) to be relegated to the background. For this purpose, incentives are used, i.e., external stimuli of a particular activity, the task of which is to provoke and strengthen the student's motives for an event. The formation of causes is, first of all, the creation of conditions and incentives for the emergence of internal motivations for learning, their awareness by the students themselves, and the further self-development of the motivational sphere.
One of the most important incentives that influence the formation of motives is the game, because all age periods with their leading activities (primary school age - educational activity, middle - socially useful, senior school-age - informative and professional business) do not crowd out the game, but continue to include it in the process of child development.
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4 Work principles
1. The principle of novelty.
Any new forms and methods of work are always unusual in the classroom. Student enthusiasm passes over time. After a few lessons, what aroused stormy interest and "went off with a bang" began to lose its zest. The use of various forms of communication (interviews, discussions, project protection) very soon begins to be perceived as the next task in the lesson that needs to be completed. Therefore, one of the main functions of a teacher is to maintain the interest of the child, offering him new types of activities, the work with which he was not yet familiar.
2. The principle of taking into account the age characteristics and language training of students.
Each subject teacher has to work with children of different ages, and by offering elementary school students a game task or an alternative form of work, we use the same exercise with more complex language material in the 6th or 7th grade. Unfortunately, very often, disappointment awaits us: the guys do not show any interest, participate in work sluggishly, and simply "disrupt" the fulfillment of the task.
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3. The principle of goodwill.
Very often, one can hear the phrase from the guys: "I like to go to this lesson because I like the teacher." This statement is not unimportant. If the teacher managed to win over children, then this is a considerable incentive to study the subject. It is a pity that many adults who graduated from school many years ago, remember with horror about an issue only because the teacher could not understand them, could not make each lesson a little joy. Even if you do not understand something or are simply not ready, then you are not afraid, you know that they will not scold you. Of course, this should not be abused! If we want to teach our students how to communicate in a foreign language, then in the lesson, we need to establish trust. Formalism destroys communication. The friendly relations between the teacher and students, between members of the entire group, will help to overcome many difficulties, including disciplinary ones. The role of humor and impromptu in the lesson is excellent.
4. The principle of surprise.
This principle is not to inform students at the beginning of the lesson: "Guys, today we have an unusual lesson: we will fall into a fairy tale." Students quickly realize that a travel lesson is just a teacher's assignment, but only in a different way. The task or form of work proposed by the teacher should be something that the students did not expect to see in the lesson.
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