Language teachers frequently use the term 'motivation' when they describe successful or unsuccessful learners. This reflects our intuitive belief that during the lengthy and often tedious process of mastering a foreign/second language (L2), the learner's enthusiasm, commitment and persistence are key determinants of success or failure. Indeed, in the vast majority of cases learners with sufficient motivation can achieve a working knowledge of an L2, regardless of their language aptitude, whereas without sufficient motivation even the brightest learners are unlikely to persist long enough to attain any really useful language. This being the case, teacher skills in motivating learners should be seen as central to teaching effectiveness. Indeed, research has shown that for many teachers problems about motivating pupils are the second most serious source of difficulty (after maintaining classroom discipline), preceding other obviously important issues such as the effective use of different teaching methods, a knowledge of the subject matter, and the capable use of textbooks and curriculum guides. If you have ever tried to teach a language class with reluctant, lethargic or uncooperative students, you will know from bitter personal experience that researchers got it right this time (for a review of L2 motivation research, see Zoltán Dörnyei: Teaching and Researching Motivation; Longman, 2001).
In the light of the importance attached to motivation, it is hard to believe that until the end of the 1980's there had been hardly any attempts in the psychological literature to design motivational strategies for classroom application, and in language teaching methodology it was not until the mid-1990's that the first descriptions of practical classroom techniques started to appear in print. Obviously, researchers had been far more interested to find out what motivation was than how it could be promoted. During the past 6-8 years, however, things have finally started to change. More and more articles and books have been published with the word 'motivating' in their title, as if a new spirit had entered the profession, urging scholars to 'stick their neck out and see what we've got'. And, luckily, what we've got is nothing to be ashamed of. There is a growing set of core knowledge in motivation research that has stood the test of time and which can therefore be safely translated into practical terms. With this in mind, two years ago I set out to produce a summary of this practical knowledge, and the result has been a book entitled Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. In this, I provide a comprehensive review of the literature and summarise my own relevant experience as a language teacher, teacher trainer and researcher.
This book is the first of its kind in the second/foreign language (L2) field that is entirely devoted to discussing motivational strategies (i.e. methods and techniques to generate and maintain the learners' motivation). The book has been intended to be very practical in nature. An initial chapter on motivation theories is followed by four chapters focusing on different aspects of a motivational teaching practice, listing a wide range of classroom ideas:
Creating the basic motivational conditions.
Generating initial student motivation.
Maintaining and protecting motivation.
Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation.
These chapters are further broken down to more specific sections, ranging from "Making the teaching materials relevant to the learners" through "Setting specific learner goals" to "Increasing learner satisfaction".
The final, concluding chapter of the book pulls all the threads together and addresses the crucial question of what might be the best way of establishing a motivation-sensitive teaching practice. There is so much for L2 teachers to pay attention to in the classroom – language content, teaching methodology, timing, administration, discipline, etc. – that for many of us taking on another onerous 'burden' (i.e. to be on a constant 'motivational alert') may be asking for too much. So what do we do? I believe that what we should aim for is to become a 'good enough motivator' rather than striving unreasonably to achieve 'Supermotivator' status. Although Motivational strategies in the Language Classroom contains over 100 practical suggestions, I don't think that we have to apply all of them to do a decent job – personally, I have consistently used only a fraction of the strategies discussed. What we need is quality rather than quantity: A few well-chosen strategies that suit both us and our learners might take us beyond the threshold of the 'good enough motivator', creating an overall positive motivational climate in the classroom. Indeed, some of the most motivating teachers often rely on a few basic techniques! Therefore, the book ends with outlining a stepwise approach to select our own set of personalised motivational techniques that would suit our teaching style and the learner group well.
Obviously, as the author, it is difficult for me to judge how effectively the book does what it promises. I have tried to give the text three features that I feel are important, namely that it should be relatively short (because few of us have much time to read besides our main job), systematic (because there is not much point in providing background material if it needs to be supplemented with other sources to get the full picture) and interesting (because I dislike boring books – although I admit that it is not that easy to write a 'page-turner' on motivation…). And with regard to the motivational strategies presented, all I can say is that they have been found to work with many teachers and learner groups before and are therefore worthy of consideration. To finish with a quote on the possibility of a motivational teaching approach by two American researchers, McCombs and Pope, "We have seen this approach work, and we are excited about its possibilities. We invite you to explore this perspective with us".
Zoltan Dornyei ( Feb 2002)