COLLEGE OF ST MARK &ST JOHN

BEd (Hons) Teaching English as a Second Language

(2009/12)

Module: Academic support: Year 1

Title: Motivation and language learning.

Assignment submitted as part of the requirement for the B Ed (Hons) Teaching

English as a Second Language.

20032112

11th October 2010

Motivation and language learning
Over the past decade, people have been stressing on the importance of having
motivation, but a question that may come across to our mind is about the meaning of
motivation itself. Different people might have different views and interpretations of
motivation. The simplest way to understand the concept of motivation is by considering it as
the catalyst of efforts in achieving any desired goals. Motivation can be seen in a various
forms, varying from the desire of a bright future, to have certain achievement or to meet
certain expectation.

In students’ life, motivation plays substantial role. It may lead them to a successful
life or failures depending on how positive or negative the student’s motivation is. For
example, if a student desires to get good results in their academics, they might have more
positive motivation than students who just want to pass. Another example is, if the student
has no desire or intention to learn, it may be due to negative motivation. Andrew Littlejohn
(2001:5-6) shares a quite similar opinion in language learning in the classes he visited where
great difference of eagerness to learn can be seen in those respective classes.

The change of class participation from first-year students to the third-year students
were fairly affected by the increase and decrease of motivation. In relation of Littlejohn’s
experience with mine, back when I was in the first-year, I had the same eager eyes; I was
motivated by the idea of learning new things and I want to achieve good results. In that
year, learning English was quite fun, and I like the way my teacher carried out the lesson.
She held many interesting activities, such as games and puzzles in order to get away from
boredom and at the same time grabbing her students’ attention and interest to the learning.
My classmates and I were very motivated to learn as we knew that it would not be a boring
class unlike other sessions. The teacher had done a good job in raising the students’
motivation via the use of intrinsic satisfaction in her class. Although Littlejohn (2001:6) said
that the effect of games and puzzle is temporary, a continuous effort will help to raise
constant motivation.

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 Despite my good marks in English, I was dropped to the second class of the second-
year due to my other subject results. My motivation to learn was quite decreasing as my
mother scolded me and she compared me to other students in my previous class. The case
worsens as the interesting first-year classes were replaced by boring lectures and extra
classes. The purpose of having extra classes was to help students for exams, which is a
typical situation in Malaysia. My English teacher at that time has changed her teaching style
that I know not the reasons; no more interesting activities. Her idea of teaching was to make
fun of student’s mistake in front of the class and punishing students who did not completed
the homework she gave. She often boasted about several students who got good results in
another class she taught. In the second-year I started to skip class especially the ones with
grumpy teachers. For that reason, I would rather stay at home instead of going to school.
For me, the use of extrinsic rewards and extrinsic punishments does not benefit me at all. As
what had been said by Littlejohn (2001:6-7), it is true that some students may become
better at studies via this method but a lot of students will lose their interest in learning
which might lead to perception of failure.

In my third year as a secondary student, I was lucky to meet an excellent English

teacher. She was very kind and warm toward her students. She treated her students with
respect and she never embarrassed her students in front of the class. If she wanted to
advise us, she would call us personally and try to discuss the matter properly. She will
always give the purpose of her activity and what she would like to see during the activity.
The way that she conducted her class made me realise that the tasks given was indeed
necessary. She will always highlight the strength of her students even if her students got a
low mark for exam. I can clearly remember that my teacher once said, “Don’t worry if you
can’t score in exams, you are improving and for me it is the best thing that I would like to
see in my students”. During my third year, my friends and I were very interested in learning
English and the interest continues even until today. By referring to Littlejohn’s article, my
third-year English teacher can be consider as a successful teacher as she managed to
motivate her students into learning by highlighting the strength and by boosting the
confidence of her students (Littlejohn, 2001, pp.6-7).

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 To conclude this writing, I would like to say that motivation is very important in
language learning it can lead to improvement or failure. Motivation of language learning
does not decrease according to the increase of time. It is teachers that play important role
in raising and decreasing motivation of her students. Good teachers are able to increase
motivation but bad teachers cannot. "A teacher affects eternity he can never tell, where his
influence stops." (Henry Brooks Adams, n.d.).

(862 words)

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List of references

Littlejohn, A., 2001. Motivation Where does it come from? Where does it go?. English
teaching professional, 19 April, pp. 5-8.