Marta Niewiarowska

Teaching Portfolio Task 1:

REFLECTION ON LEARNING

Concentrate on the issues of motivation to learn a language from the

teachers and learners perspective.

A.

It is important to emphasise here that motivation is more than simply

arousing interest. It also involves sustaining interest and investing
time and energy into putting the necessary effort to achieve goals. We
make this point because so often, from a teachers point of view,
motivation is seen as simply sparking an initial interest, for example
presenting an interesting language activity. However, motivating
learners entails far more than this.
Williams and Burden (1997:121)

In their book Psychology for Teachers, Williams, and Burden draw attention to
the fact that the motivation has a dynamic nature. It means that motivation is the
spark which encourages students to start the task, as well as the energy to
continue the learning effort. Therefore, the teacher role is not only to make the
task or activity interesting, but also to maintain the students interest and
commitment for the whole learning process.

To sum up, I strongly believe that motivation plays a huge role in language
learning. Motivation is a force which gives children power to learn. Of course,
unmotivated children can still learn foreign language, but the process will be
longer and not so effective.

B. Think of a group of 7-8 year-olds, 11-12 year-olds and 14-15 year-olds . What
would be motivating and demotivating for them in the following areas:
topics...
activities...
linguistic content...
teachers behaviour...
teachers attitude...

A group of 7-8 year olds

Students from this age group likes topics which refer to the their nearest
environment and their interests, for example: school, family, home. Topics to
serious, unclear or which refer to something abstract, unfamiliar for the children,
may be considered as demotivating. Activities for this age group should be based
on games and allow children to play and move around the classroom. Such
activities ought to have some fun content or story and give learners opportunity
to express themselves by singing, acting or painting. Demotivating activities are
the activities which demands from children to sit for a longer period of time and
are often repeated in the same form. Motivating linguistic content should contain
a lot of vocabulary which students will be able to quickly learn and use in many
different forms like songs or rhymes. Learning grammar structures and language
rules may be considered by the children as demotivating. In regards to the
teachers behaviour and attitude, children find it motivating when teacher sets
clear goals and explains the tasks carefully, prises the pupils efforts, smiles a lot
and laughs with them and is engaged and well prepared to the lessons. For
children from this age group a demotivating teacher is a person who does not like
his or her job and is always in bad mood, yells at students and does not
appreciate the learners work.

A group of 11-12 year-olds

This age group students prefer topics which are a bit more mature and refer to
their interests, for example: sports, music, celebrities. Therefore, topics which are
considered too childish or too easy are considered as demotivating. Activities for
this age group should be based on a group or pair work and engage students into
expressing their opinions in different forms. Demotivating activities are those
activities which require a lot of boring and out of context repetitions. Motivating
linguistic content should allow students to expand their vocabulary and interests.
For 11-12 year-olds demotivating linguistic content will refer to some difficult
grammar structures and out-of-date, useless ( from the students perspective)
vocabulary. The teachers behaviour and attitude which students may consider
demotivating occur when the teacher is not prepared for the lessons, does not
pay attention to the students and emphasises only pupils mistakes. Teacher who
students find motivating is the teacher who engages childrens ideas and allows
them to participate in the lesson planning.

A group of 14-15 year-olds

For this age group topics which develop students interests or concern popular
issues are the most motivating. Topics with a childish content will be considered
as demotivating. Activities for this group should give the students a bit more
freedom and allow them to feel more adult. Activities which 7-8 year-old students
find the most motivating, for this age group students will be the most disliked.
Such students want to be treat as adults so they will not be eager to perform
songs or do some silly games. Linguistic content for teenagers should refer to
present issues and the students interests. This age group learners like when the
teacher treats them as adults, is fair and takes them seriously. The teacher will
not sustain the learners motivation for too long if he or she will not respect the
pupils, focus only on the students failures and will be too demanding.