“Increasing Positive Motivation of Students for Learning English by Means of Project Work”

Svitlana Chaikina

a teacher of English,

Sumy

“Increasing Positive Motivation of Students

 for Learning English through Play”.

To begin with, let me tell you a short parable.

When the little birds had grown up in their nest, their mother said to them:

“You must fly and look for food. I cannot feed you anymore.”

 “We can’t, we are afraid!”- cried the little birds.

“You must do it or you will die of hunger,”- she insisted.

And they came to the edge, and spread their wings, and they flew off.

Students are very much like little these birds and my task is to give them knowledge that could help them to “fly” into a big world outside the walls of the school and to communicate them for Learning English.

A foreign language as a school subject takes an important place in the system of public education. It is not a secret that English lessons often become very much alike and boring not only for pupils but for teachers as well.

Experience I have received at school working with students of 7 through 16 years old allowed me to fix some key principles of an effective English class. To my mind the teaching material should contain culturally relevant topics and situations that are closely connected with students’ life and interests. A teacher should invent and introduce something new in order to change the atmosphere in the classroom and to motivate the students.

Folk wisdom says that “unmotivated students just won’t learn”. This proverb comes to my mind when I see how different various students’ attitudes to foreign languages are. My personal interest to the problem of motivation originated when I realized that many of my students were very lowly motivated for learning English. Besides, they were afraid to speak in class, because of  making mistakes and as a result getting lower points than they had expected.

I got deeper into the problem and studied the works of some psychologists  concerning motivation. What I have found out is that there are two types of motivation: intrinsic that comes from within (“I love it!”, “It’s fun!”) and extrinsic that comes from outside (“My parents will buy me a bike, if I have a good mark in English”, “Speaking English will be helpful for my career”, “English is a compulsory subject”, “I would like to travel abroad and English will be useful”).

I did a survey and it turned out that many of my students were not motivated at all, some had extrinsic motivation and only very few students had intrinsic motivation.

Therefore, I decided to concentrate on the point of motivation. I studied some strategies to motivate students and began implementing them. First I tried to create basic motivational conditions by demonstrating my personal enthusiasm, creating a good and pleasant classroom environment and a sense of a group.

My next step was originating initial motivation. I decided that the best target group would be elementary students. I tried to capture the children’s attention and curiosity, and channel their energy towards learning by introducing authentic materials, project work, role-play, various games, songs, etc.

Young learners, actually, do not have any particular intrinsic motivation to learn the second language; therefore I try to create it by using activities which are most natural for children. I am absolutely sure that there are four basic conditions of successful learning: visualization, games, role-play, mobility and music in the classroom.

Of all these activities games come first.  During the lesson I involve students into different language and grammar games, which alongside with traditional classroom activities promote formation of language skills and stimulate positive motivation for learning. I choose games carefully to suit the topic or the grammar we are learning at the moment.

Such phonetic games as “I Hear – I Don’t Hear” or “Hunters” help me to develop my students’ listening skills.

Vocabulary games such as “Chain game” or “Snowball” help students to learn vocabulary easily.

All kinds of guessing games (“20 questions”, “ Noughts and Crosses” and “ Hangman”) are good for practicing Vocabulary and spelling, while  “Crazy stories” suit well to practice reading, writing and listening.

So, we can see that games are not only fun. They give students a chance to learn and practice, motivate them and promote learning communicative competences.

Maintaining and preserving motivation turned out to be a little more difficult. At this stage role-play appeared to be quite effective.

Children enjoy pretending to be someone else – it’s one of their favourite play activities from an early age. That’s why role-play brings excellent results. I am deeply convinced that it is an effective teaching technique that helps to create a good and pleasant classroom atmosphere, arises the learners’ interest and makes the language impressive.

Elementary students role-play such situations as “My Favourite Toy”, “My Doll’s Room”, “Making Salads”, “At the Doctor’s”, and others. Senior students like role-playing such situations as “At the Bank”, “Applying for a Job”, “Job Interview”, etc.

Another excellent means to maintain and preserve motivation is, to my mind, project work which is kind of a game, too. In my opinion it allows my students to use the language more creatively. Performance and organizational projects like staging plays and organizing English parties also turn out a rewarding experience in terms of teaching and learning.

Here we come to the last motivational strategy which is encouraging positive self-evaluation. Following this strategy I pass along compliments to my students and provide regular feedback about their progress. I offer rewards in a motivating manner trying not to overuse them. I use both material (stickers, candy) and non-material rewards which usually have visual representation in the form of certificates of appreciation, like “Star Student”, “Student of the Week”, “Most Improved Student”, “Good Behaviour”, “Perfect Attendance” , and many others. Giving my students marks, I try to do it in a motivating way and take care that they reflect effort and improvement.  And, of course, I try to encourage students’ self-assessment.

To finish with I’d like to say that in my opinion motivation is the key to all successful learning. And it goes without saying that ability to motivate students to learn is a key skill of every teacher.