在英语课堂上激发学习者的内在学习动机-英文-..doc

SLT Yang Lilan/ Intr insic Motivation in the ELT classroomIntrinsic Motivation in the ELT classroomoYang Lilan( H ohhot Vocational Colleg e, H ohhot, I nner Mongolia 010050) Abstr act This paper aims to explore wa ys t o arouse lear ner s. intr insic motivat ion in t he ELT classroomthrough theor etical and pr actical invest igat ions. Key words intrinsic motivat ion; extrinsic motivat ion; teaching techniques; ELT classroom 中 图 分 类 号 G442 文 献 标 识 码 A 文 章 编 号 167228610( 2006) 0220106203the lear ners. intrinsic motivation both at the stageI. What is intr insic and extrinsic motivation?of initiating and sustaining motivation. This wouldIn focusing on the r easons why people chooseto act in certain ways, it becomes apparent thatthese reasons for our actions fall into differenttypes. Sometimes we do something because we ar eparticularly interested in the activity itself. A t oth2er times we engage in an activity not because theact of doing it is enjoyable in itself, but throughthe action we can gain something else. Cognitivepsychologists have come to draw a distinction be2tween intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Csik2szentmihalyi and Nakamura provide a clear defini2tion of these concepts. Very simply, when the onlyreason for performing an act is to gain somethingoutside the activity itself, such as passing an ex2am, or obtaining financial r ewards, the motivationis likely to be extrinsic; when the experience of do2ing something generates interest and enjoymentand the reason for performing the activity lieswithin the activity itself, then the motivation islikely to be intrinsic 1 . For example, does thestudent work har d to satisfy his or her own interestand curiosity? Or does the student work hard tosatisfy the teacher and get good mar ks?It is impor tant to present tasks which tap intoinclude a consider ation of inter est, curiosity, chal2lenge, and the development of independent masteryand judgment. Most of the wor k in these areassuggest how to arouse their motivation.II. Arousing learners. intr insic motivationLear ners would lear n what they believe theyneed, or what they are inter ested in. T eachersmight make students memorize grammatical str uc2tur es and vocabular y lists for the examination pur2poses, but it is very unlikely that this informationwould remain with the learners for a long time af2ter the examination. If we believe that we areteaching for life, we therefore need to providelearners with texts, both reading and listening,that are interested by the learners, or at least rele2vant to their linguistic needs. Learner s also need tobe provided with tasks that are challenging. Acqui2sition of the language will be mor e effective if thetexts or input is either suitable for the lear ners lev2el or a little higher. If it is a little higher it will bechallenging, but not too difficult so as to be de2motivating.2. 1 Developing students. listening skills 作 者 简 介 杨 丽 兰 , 女 , 呼 和 浩 特 职 业 学 院 外 语 系 , 高 级 教 师 , 教 育 硕 士 , 研 究 方 向 : 英 语 教 学 法 。106语 文 学 刊 ( 外 文 版 ) 2006 年 第 2 期The development of listening skills must pre2cede speaking skills. It is obvious that in order tohave a successful conver sation, one must under2stand what is said to him/ her. In teaching listen2ing, the following steps can be employed so as toar ouse students. desire for listening.1. P redicting what people are going to talk a2bout.2. Guessing the meaning of unknown words.3. U sing students. own knowledge of the sub2ject to help their understanding.If students find a particular listening lessontoo difficult, the teacher may modify the contentsin the following methods.1. Adding pre2listening tasks to help studentsget familiar with the topic.2. Making one2time listening tasks easy forstudents ( this might probably be differ ent from theones in the textbook) .3. Designing accomplishable two2time listeningtasks ( this might probably be closer to the exerci2ses in the book) .4. Adding post2listening tasks that are relatedto the topic, aiming at developing the students.speaking or writing skills.These processes can be done through revisingthe listening materials in students. textbooks tosuit the students. language level. They not onlyhelp students understand the listening texts but al2so excite students. interest in them.2. 2 Teaching new vocabularyWe should limit the number of new words in areading passage to about 10215% . It is not advisa2ble for teachers to expect learners to learn a lot ofnew words at one time. A passage containing mor ethan 15% fresh vocabulary will probably frustratelearners and destr oy their interest in the language.The new wor ds to be introduced should be high2lighted in some ways ( under lined, colored etc. ) .Pictures are often a good and immediate meansto introduce and explain certain new words. It isalways a good idea to bring the things r epresentedby the new wor ds into the classroom. Words suchas textbook, reference book, backpack, purse, i2dentity cards, etc. can obviously be presented inthis way. Pictures can be board drawings, wallpictur es, card pictures, magazine pictur es and soon. If learners can have a clear mental picture ofwhat the new word represents, they ar e able to re2member it longer and mor e easily; they could de2velop a feeling of likeness towards not only theword but also its appearance. It is not just a wordto repeat. It is a word that r epresents a concr eteobject to them.When teaching abstract words, it is advisableto teach them in appr opriate situations. For exam2ple, to teach the word spread, the teacher may de2scribe this situation: A building is on fire, somefiremen are fighting to prevent the fire fromspr ea ding to other buildings.Discovery techniques are very interestingways. Lear ners should work out, guess or comeup with the meaning of the wor ds for themselvesrather than being given everything by the teachers.Instead of teaching them the wor ds, the teachercan show them examples from actions or situationsand ask learners to use their previous know ledge towork out what can go with these words. Whenlearners have made their guesses about the wor ds,the teacher can confirm or modify their guesses.Discover y techniques stimulate the learners to acti2vate their previous knowledge. It is a commonlyrecognized fact that learner s remember best whenthey have actually done something with the wordsthey are learning. But too much concentration ondiscovery techniques can be boring and unproduc2tive. Actions and action2related words are probablybetter explained by mimes, actions and gestures,such as: smooth out ( 抹 平 ) , get to one. s feet ( 站起 来 ) , hang up ( 挂 起 来 ) , bounce ( 弹 回 ) .Ask questions about the story with the newwords. Ask learners to use the newly learnedwords in their answer s. Learner s can refer to thepassage if they find it difficult to give the answersfrom their memories.2. 3 T eaching gr ammar107SLT Yang Lilan/ Intr insic Motivation in the ELT classroomGrammar is very important for Chinesestudents lear ning English. T ranslating oral andwritten sentences, analyzing grammatical struc2tures and giving examples are three common waysschool teacher s most often use in class. The mainadvantages of translating are quickness, directnessand efficiency. T here are, however, some disad2vantages. First, it is not possible to translate eve2r ything, because very often the two languages donot have exact words for the same concepts. Sec2ond, frequent use of the translation method tendsto be boring to lear ners.It is advisable for teachers to show meaning ina visual way, e. g. through a situation. T he simpleand clearest way to present a structure is often toshow it directly, using the things that the learnerscan see. For example, / There. s something wrongwith my head. I. ve got a headache. T here. s some2thing wrong with my stomach. I. ve got a stomach2ache 0 F inally, the teacher could repeat the sen2tence or rewr ite the sentence on the board, ortr anslate it into Chinese if it is necessar y. For an2other example, / he seems to 0 can be presentedthrough the following situation. / A man lives nextdoor to me. I don. t know him well. H e has manyexpensive things But I think he. s rich, because heseems to be rich0. Showing meaning is to think ofa real or imaginary situation from outside theclass, in which the structur e could be used natural2ly.Introducing new language items is basicallyteacher2led since it is the teacher. s job to explainthe language and conduct a cue2response dr ill. Dis2covery methods, on the other hand, aim to givelearners chances to participate, guide lear ners todiscover how language works. Teachers mustchoose examples carefully. Well2chosen examplesare a short cut to show how a str ucture is used.Students can get the feel of the language evenwithout knowing the rules. A good example of thisis the learning of the word / whichever0 in the fol2lowing procudures:( 1) Wr ite the following models on the board:Model : 1 You can take any one of the seats (which ) you like.) ) ) You can take whichever seat you like.