This week's readings focused on teaching principles in general and motivation in particular. It was really interesting to read about the correlation between the different types of motivation and possible ways of creating it.
I think that creating motivation is more of teacher's responsibility when working in a school setting, or working with children, anyway. One of the reasons why I decided to work with adults was/is that I don't know how to create motivations. Part of the problem here is that I come from a background, where knowledge was valued for knowledge's sake. About half the things I know, I learned because it was cool to know them. I mean, knowing what an epicycloid is and carefully inserting the word in a conversation with a math major (who is sure that you cannot add) is a lot of fun. And generally, acquiring new info is interesting, so I have a hard time understanding people, who are indifferent to learning. I stopped caring about grades back in high school, the main reason I got Honor's Diploma (Gold Medal) was that it was a family tradition, and I value that. The other reason was that even without caring I got good grades. Same happened in college. I wanted the information, and the paper stating that I can go on to grad school and, ultimately, do what I want to do career wise. It so happens that my career goals involve a Ph.D.
So, my assumption is, that when you work with adults, they are already motivated - why would they be in your class otherwise, right? My last year teaching experiences proved me to be right. That is most of my students (the number increased with the level) knew, why they were taking English classes and what potential rewards that held. By rewards I mean being able to communicate outside of the immigrant community, first and foremost, talking to their children's teachers, getting better and more legal jobs etc. Generally, I think that teachers can help with motivation, but students need to figure it out, especially adult students.
3 comments:
I'm torn in your take on motivation. I always just wanted to learn, so I did well...until college, where I learned but didn't express it well.
Anyway, the thought someone would need motivation to learn a language is crazy to me. I'd think they'd want to learn it to be able to communicate...that's that. But learners do often need other motivation.
Working with high school kids, I find that grades are often enough of a motivator to get effort out of kids. Their parents threats are not. Even just saying that if everyone improves their next test score by ___% and we can watch a movie gets action. (this way they all can earn it easily and no one is left behind.)
As far as I understood from your own story you always have an intrinsic motivation which is the best. If we are lucky enough we are going to have a class of highly motivated students which makes our work easy. If we are not lucky enough, then we will be on our own to motivate them.
You are lucky. You grew up with certain expectations and you were able to stay focused. I don't think many people grow up expecting to get their doctrate. I was encouraged by my parents to get an education and I did. My husband was never encouraged, and he didn't. At least not until he met me and I encouraged him to go back to school. I want to teach children so I can be the person encouraging them when their parents don't.
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