Motivation: The Key to Success

Rob Dean
Bosnia Herzegovina, 2010
 Today’s Workshop

Motivation and meaning

Facilitating meaning in class
Contexts
Emotions
Language Patterns
Catering for everybody
Youth 2009
 School is boring!
• subjects do not mean anything to us,
• teachers treat us as if we were kids /
stupid / have nothing to say,
• we feel like ants in a colony –
anonymous and unimportant.

A LACK OF MOTIVATION
 What is motivation?

”Motivation is the willingness of a

person to exert high levels of effort
to satisfy some individual need.”
(Robbins & Coulter, 1996).
Motivation can happen in…

…a school environment that

students find worthwhile
and MEANINGFUL
Two types of meaning:
reference, or sense, or deeply
surface meaning felt meaning
 Lazing on
rain the beach
Fantastic time

Skiing
No work Holidays

Auntie Yvonne
Exotic food Airport
Relaxation delays
sunburn
Relevant Emotions
Contexts

Meaning

Language Patterns
 Would your students be
interested in reading about or
discussing the following?
. What they can see in the classroom.

What they had for dinner last night.

Renaissance art and literature

The political situation in the Middle East .

 Or what about these?

Anyone caught on a bus without a ticket and who

does not have the money to pay the fine will have
to work for 2 hours cleaning the buses.

Smoking should be banned in all puiblic places and

for all people under the age of 25.

Beyonce is a much better singer than Madonna.

School uniform should be optional.

What do you think?

Every journey starts from home
Activate! B1
What do our learners need in order
to work with these topics?

Focus on language – grammar

and lexis
 Grammar
Translation
 Sensitisation to the language
structure – one way…
Question tags in English can be quite
complicated. We use them to either get new
information or to seek agreement. When we seek
new information, the voice intonation rises at
the end, when we seek agreement the voice
falls. If the sentence is positive, the tag is
negative, and vice-versa. So, for example, ‘You
like bananas, don’t you?’ has positive followed
by negative, and uses the auxiliary ‘do’. If the
verb is ‘have’, ‘be’ or a modal, then the verb in
the tag is the same. All other verbs use ‘do.’
Do you understand?
 Grammar Translation
To exemplify language for analysis

The dog put the last kitten into the box.

Grapes are for birds.

The guinea pig’s cage is sliding off the

table.

Are you a schoolboy? – No, I am.

The Direct
Method
 Mechanical Drills
This is a cat This is a cat
Mouse? This is a mouse
Dog? This is a dog
Horse? This is a horse
That? This is a that
Well Setting
what Up The Case
else is Studies
there
then?
 Solutions (1)
Embedding the language in..

1. Cross-cultural topics
2. Cross-curricular subjects
3. Factoids
4. Personalisation
Challenges 1
Challenges 1
Challenges 1
Challenges 1
 What do YOU think?

Will schools be bigger or smaller in the future?

What languages will be taught in the schools of the future?
What subjects will not be taught in the future?
Will school be better or worse in the future?
Will computers and robots replace teachers?
What will the weather be like tomorrow?
 What kind of practice?
Frequent
Personalised
Memorable
Interactive
Catering for EVERYBODY
 Left brain Right brain
LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN
Structured Creative
Problem solving Artistic
Logical Interactive
Likes rules Dislikes rules
Likes systems Dislikes systems
 Sensory Preference

Kinaesthetic

Visual

Auditory
The Top 5 Words in English

the
of
it
a
and
Exercise 315
Albert is a teacher who lives in
London. Complete the sentences
about Albert.

• Albert travels __ work __ bus.

• He is married __ Alice.
• He has 3 cats __ his house.
• Albert’s students work hard __ his
lessons.
 I gave a seminar in Poland last week.

I slept in most of my physics lessons at school.

I cooked soup at my friend’s house two weeks

ago.

I usually go to the gym on Wednesday

evenings.

I have 10 plants in my living room.

I once met the Prime Minister of Malaysia at a

conference.
1.Ship
2.Banana
3.Mobile phone
4.Pearson Longman
5.Classroom
6.Red
7.Summer
8.Sheep
9.Nephew
10.Dictionary
 ship / sheep
single letter / double letter
correct / wrong
 And Finally: Can you…
… write with your left (right*) hand?

… pat your head and rub your stomach?

… rotate your hands in different

directions at the same time?

… fly a plane?
Relevant Emotions
Contexts

Meaning

Language Patterns
 ‘People say that motivation
doesn’t last. Well, neither
does bathing. That’s why we
recommend it daily.’
Zig Ziglar, American writer