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How Motivation Affects Learning
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Factors that affect language learning - Motivation

When we talk about motivation, we mean the drive that leads people to make certain choices, to make efforts and to keep going. Your motivation to learn the target language, to actively participate in learning activities and to take and create opportunities to use the language will be one of the most powerful influences on whether or not you will be actually successful.

I want to help my students be successful, so what does that mean for I? I need to understand what is motivating my students, what can positively or negatively affect their desire to learn and keep learning, and I need to have a range of strategies to protect and positively influence student motivation.

Different learners will have different sets of initial motivations and experience a different range of feelings during their course. In addition, over the sustained, long term effort which developing skills in a foreign language will require, motivation is not constant. It ebbs and flows in complex ways in response to various internal and external factors.

So, given how complex motivation is, what do we know? What can we do to help learners be successful?

For many of students, learning a language is a means to an end. They have goals they want to achieve: being able to talk to customers, earning a promotion, getting a new job, passing an exam, etc.
I design personalized courses from the beginning to help them reach their real life goals, and that we continually evaluate progress.
The end goals customers have are very important when they are planning or first starting their course, but they may be too long term to have an immediate motivating effect for each lesson.
I set sub goals (proximal goals), create milestones, evaluate progress and achievement and congratulate students.
The teacher in has one of the most powerful influences on motivation. Research consistently shows that this is true. Teacher enthusiasm and interest in students are two powerful factors.
Enthusiasm and interest are infectious. If you are enthusiastic about lesson activities and about students’ participation, progress and success, you will motivate your students.

Learners are more motivated if their learning goals are personal, but learners don’t always choose their goals. This happens in adult life as well as at school. Sometimes the company sets the goal.

The more we learn about our students, the more we can find ways to personalize the lessons and make them relevant. We also need to ensure that lesson activities are intrinsically interesting and fun.
The connection and sense of value a language learner has regarding the culture and society where the language is spoken will often have a significant influence on their desire to learn the language.
Encouraging varied experiences with the target language culture will motivate many.

Believing you CAN do something is one of the drivers for motivation. If learners feel they can learn, they are motivated to try and keep trying. If they don’t believe in their ability, their motivation decreases.

The best way to give students a sense that they CAN learn the language is to create multiple experiences of success in every lesson: managing a learning task; successfully achieving a lesson goal, etc.

Learners make assumptions about their likely future learning experiences and successes based on their past experiences. They may also use strategies that are good and bad based on those experiences.

Regular moments of success are essential to help students have a sense of what they CAN do. In addition, I want to encourage use of any learning strategies students have used effectively in the past.

Adults hate situations where their self worth is potentially challenged. They hate to lose face. Language learning is full of risky public situations as they try to understand and use new language.

Lessons with a private teacher create a “safe” environment where students can take risks as they try out and use new language. They will get praise and positive correction. This kind of collaboration will help them use the language with confidence in any other public situation.

In collaboration with www.berlitz.com