Raising the Motivation
Compared with carrying out of the 3500-year-old Decalogue (“…Thou
shall not kill. Thou shall not steal…”), Comenius’ 350-year-old call for “pleasant
schools and an easy way of learning” seems just a trifle. But what has always fascinated
me is the way children (and their parents) still find studying so hard and schools so
tiresome.
What we educate our children and ourselves for is “to get the skill
of acting properly in any worldly situation” (J. Hibben). But the usual routine of
the comprehensive school sometimes mars this sacred purpose. Those who are not motivated
say: “What are we learning this for? We’ll never use it in all our born days. And even
if we need it, it’ll be too late: we’re sure to have forgotten everything by that
time.” I also stand for a non-increase in the entropy of the Universe, but the very
first argument doesn’t hold water. Children can’t predict the way their lives will go,
and it might be a good thing to encourage them to ask their parents what they thought when
they were kids they would be doing twenty years later: very few people have a
well-developed plan for their lives.
When we start a new discipline, in fact we are to sell it. For
instance, it can be worked out in what way such a thing as “business etiquette” may be
useful for nineth-formers, 14-year olds. There is no doubt that their interest will wear
off when the novelty passes and the hardships of learning remain. So it is important to
develop a list of the gains and advantages they will receive by the end of the course, to
keep it in mind in order to play a trump card at the right moment. The weak point is that
there are not many mechanisms of influence on children with low motivation when they are
in their teens.
Many motives that make people do something can be summarised by
two: a desire to get (i.e. the gain) and an anxiety over losing (i.e. the loss). Applied
to the children in question, and according to what they write if asked, they want
prosperity both in their careers (though they haven’t decided yet what it will be), and
in purely personal matters, like having confortable cottages, cars, dogs, successful
marriages, a lot of free time, and money enough to travel all around the world. They
usually don’t put such things as knowledge or wisdom in first place. But we should be
aware of the existence of these, too, as the following conversation shows: “If you were
the principal of our school, what would you do?” – (laughing) “Of course we would
cut the time of the lesson to 15-20 minutes, leaving the rest of the time for huge breaks
when we could run, play, shout and enjoy ourselves!” – “Do you realise that in that
case you’d have to change the curriculum and face the pressure from both educational
officials and parents?” “Yes, (seriously) we do.” “If you were parents, would you
take your children to such a school?” (Thoughtful at first, then laughing): “No, of
course not!”
Some also name future education, the ability to pass entrance exams to
institutes, which means knowledge and a good command of the language, as motives. So,
their desire is future prosperity, with the vague idea that it can’t be achieved without
the proper skills and knowledge in various fields.
Students’ “losses” are few: for unmotivated pupils a mark
doesn’t play much of a role. When asked what they had come to the lesson that day for,
the answers in one group were: our parents saw us off in the morning and the weather was
bad; our headmistress and the teacher noticed us enter the building; the PE court was
occupied, so there was no place for us to stay unnoticed; we’d like to meet some
friends; it’s even more boring at home (for those who live in secluded places). So the
“losses” are: good relationships with the school authorities; friends; a quiet family
atmosphere; and distraction.
In my courses we are going to study various business notions,
realities, and manners in business conduct, like the proper way of greeting, talking over
the phone, etc. And, besides the general gains of bettering language in grammar study,
improving listening/comprehending and communication skills, we intend to help develop the
abilities to perceive, remember and expound information, and make well-developed
summaries. Speaking their language, it might be advisable to use questions in the
conversations of the type: “Do you want to reach success in your career (whatever it may
be)? Do you believe it will be easier for you to do well if you understand all the things
happening around you?” Or, “Do you want to enter an institute? Do you think it will be
crucial for you to behave in the right way during an interview?” etc. Such patterns are
only examples of the procedure of introduction; but it should be born in mind that weak
arguments should not be used. E.g., some serious students, who do exist in any
low-motivated group, dislike entertainment as an essential part of the process of
learning, and if we offer distraction as an argument, they will only feel uneasy.
Introduction of any new material using questions is aimed at winning the children’s
interest and showing the practical importance of the topic of the lesson, on the one hand,
and at involving them in conversation, on the other.
It is useful to remember that concentration usually lasts no more than
17 minutes and is apparently even less for children, and that too great a diversity of
topics also brings along comprehension problems, which arouse a lot of timing problems in
working with “weak” groups. The students tend to think a lot before answering, so at
first almost all the answers should be prompted both from the semantical and grammatical
points of view.
Teachers should also consider the following: to check grammar
exercises, giving 30 seconds per answer on the average (including their explanation) in a
group of 14, we’ll need seven minutes of 40 at the lesson. Clearly, to give more than we
are able to check leads to the temptation to skip the task. And we should discuss (or
check) the lexical tasks of the homework; give, explain and check comprehension of the new
material; and during the lesson give some tasks to think over on their own, too. We have
already at least four tasks to perform, but no time left to let them relax, and so there
is a lack of discipline.
As we are so pressed for time, it is advisable from the very beginning
to explain that if within, say, three seconds, a student hasn’t started to give the
transcription/explanation/definition/etc. of a word from the home-task text, or his/her
grammar practice sentence hasn’t been written (although asked to be written), or within
five minutes the individual task at the lesson hasn’t been completed and so on – it
will definitely influence the mark at the end of the lesson. And there are only three
levels of a mark for performing a task: done/not done; done, but wrong, or not explained
properly; and done perfectly. These measures may help to maintain a high and efficient
tempo to the lesson.
From one point of view, low-motivated children usually do not care
about their marks, from the other – it’s the only mechanism at hand for influencing
them. And the mark itself is a rather complicated thing: it’s very subjective, to a
great extent it depends upon the experience of the teacher, and for those students not
satisfied, it takes a lot of time to explain the reasons for it. So we are to present our
demands beforehand, and they should be simple enough for students to understand, accept,
and carry out.
When we present our demands to the students this should be done within
a limited period of time – it depends upon the ability of the group to perform the task
– such simplification of the checking procedure can lead to raising the motivation power
of the mark and sequentially to positive motivation on the whole. In fact, it’s their
diligence that is assessed during most time of the term; leaving skills appraisal for
regular test and the end-of-the-term tests and exams.
By Olga Mishchenko
to be continued
|