Midterm Report
NA3C0007 劉莉莎
Why I pick this article?
This time I pick the article “Motivation and Transfer in Language
Learning” from the previous article’s references to make a
comparison and a contrast with the previous article. The reason
why I choose this one is I want to explore the issue that non-native
speaking English teachers can use English picture books to
enhance students’ motivation in their teaching and to make up the
deficiency about the lack of sufficient experiences of living in real
English speaking environments. I will focus on motivation. This
article is one of the two ones I want to study. The other is
“Nonnative-English-Speaking Teachers in the English Teaching
Profession”. It is an article which defends for the profession of
nonnative English speaking teachers.
This Research’s Background
This article emphasizes the importance of motivation and transfer
in students’ learning. The author did a literature review in the
beginning to give supports to her idea. She thought that transfer is
an application of prior knowledge to be used in a new learning
situation (McKeough, 1995).We often view transfer as a goal when
learning activity exists. Such an extent is a measure of learning
effect. (Pea, 1987; Perkins, 1991). Motivation is defined as an
impetus to give learners intentions and ambition to pursue his
objectives (Ames & Ames, 1989). It promotes the learners’ active
involvement and attitude in learning. So the two elements,
motivation and transfer, really play significantly important roles in
learning.
Then the author brings up his idea that many researchers
suggest the relationship between transfer and motivation is
mutually supportive during learning. If the learner found what he
learns is relevant and transferable to other situations, his motivation
will be stimulated because of having the desire to acquire the skills
or knowledge.
Similarly, when transfer comes about, the learner will be perceptive
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to take the opportunities for transfer and he needs to maintain the
motivation to make good use of them (Pea, 1988). So teachers have
to be comprehensive about them and manipulate them in teaching.
It will be much beneficial for students.
Furthermore the author researches the nature of transfer and
motivation. He believes content or conceptual knowledge, strategic
or procedural knowledge, and appropriate dispositions for learning
need to be transferred. (Thorndike, 1932 ; Perkins et al., 1993).
The Rise of One Argument
The proponents, who think the content teaching is more important
than strategic knowledge, argue that when learners have mastered
the content of a specific domain, they can display the effective
strategies in new learning, even those strategies are never taught
explicitly (Chi, 1988). They proclaim that general strategies are
weak to enhance performance in most of the tasks if there is no
requisite knowledge in the specific domain.
The Rise of Another argument
At the same time a common argument rose for opposing the ideaif
one can identify and teach the general skills (e.g. metacognitive
and problem-solving skills), the learners will more easily transfer
their learning (Pressley et al., 1987). They oppose the proclamation
that positive inclination, like high motivation, risk-taking attitude,
mindfulness or attentiveness, responsibility for learning will
definitely lead learners to their success (Salomon & Perkins, 1988;
Pea, 1988).
In the research the author points out many theorists and
researchers have found that it is important to recognize the
construct of motivation not as a single entity but as a multi-factorial
one. Research studies have shown that language acquisition is the
result of an interplay between cognitive mechanism and
environmental conditions (Spolsky, 1985; Sivert & Egbert, 1995).
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Here I give the comparison and the contrast between these two
researches as follows.
Methods:
Similarities :
(1) Both of the researchers set an explicit objective in the
beginning of their research.
They all focus on the same topic in motivation of learning. The
previous research investigates teachers’ strategies to develop
students’ interest in learning English as a second language. The
author starts his ideal with theses sentences “Language learning
should be more fun and enjoyable for students. It is important for a
teacher to facilitate students’ interest in learning the English
Language”. This research “Motivation and Transfer in Language”
emphasizes the importance of motivation and transfer. They all give
an explicit goal in the beginning of the research.
(2) They all use literature review to tell the background why
they give the researches. They sufficiently show us what is
already known about this topic.
The previous research’s literature view really provides a brief
handy guide for readers to have a quick overview for the research.
The researcher intended to examine on types of primary schools
teachers’ strategies which will enhance ESL students’ leaning
interest and get the reasons why students tend to lose their interest
in learning English.
Through the literature review we will understand immediately why
the author wants to make the study.
Gardner(1985) had the idea that Motivation has long been
identified as one of the main factors affecting English language
learning. Ellis(1997) expressed that teachers should explore more
fully the factors of motivating students to perform task well. Parsons,
Hinson and Brown(2001) thought Motivation is an important
component or factor in learning process. Wimolmas (2013)
indicated that learning and motivation have the same importance in
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gaining new knowledge and skills.
The author of this article did a literature review in the
beginning to give supports to her idea. She thought that transfer is
an application of prior knowledge to be used in a new learning
situation (McKeough, 1995).We often view transfer as a goal when
learning activity exists. Such an extent is a measure of learning
effect. (Pea, 1987; Perkins, 1991). Motivation is defined as an
impetus to give learners intentions and ambition to pursue his
objectives (Ames & Ames, 1989). It promotes
a learners’ active involvement and attitude in learning. So these two
elements really play significantly important roles.
(3) They all give convincing supports to their ideas with
offering relevant researches, not only expressing their
theories by their words.
(4) They did a conclusion in the end of their theses to tell us
what the research has proved or disproved.
(5) The authors list references in the end of the two articles to
make known their citation’s sources.
Differences:
(1) There are 45 survey questionnaires in the previous research to
investigate the strategies the teachers have used to enhance
their students’ interest and what are the reasons why the
students stop their interest. But there is no survey or experiment
in the research MTLL.
(2) In the previous research the participants were 45 grade four
students and two English language teachers in primary schools
in Brunei. There were two classes involved in the study. But
there are no participants in the research MTLL.
(3) I think the previous article has more regular procedure which
usually exists in theses than the present one does. The present
one does not have any experiments to prove any hypothesis. It
is an article in a digest. It only brings up many researches’
findings to support her theory.
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Findings
Previous research’s:
(1) The students got much more interest in learning English by
using ICT and music. This proved that teachers’ taking good
strategies will enhance students’ motivation and promote their
learning.
The research of previous article got the finding: Most students
(66.7%) agreed that they were interested in learning English and
33.3% of students did not show interest in learning. Some of the
students did not show any interest in English because they had
difficulty in understanding the teachers’ lecture, especially when
making sentences with correct grammar. The students also did
not have any idea on what the teachers have said to them. The
students were lack of motivation from teachers and their parents.
On the contrary, there were 90% of the students who strongly
agreed that they liked their teachers using ICT and music to
support their language teaching. But there are still 10% students
disagreed in using ICT. Students showed that using ICT in
learning English was fun and enjoyable, and they were able to
understand the lessons quite well. They stated that the use of
ICT has made learning English easier. Additionally, it seemed
that the students like having their classes in the computer lab,
because they could use computers individually or in groups to
search information from the internet. In spite of the fact, some
students still did not like to learn English by using ICT, because
it could be confusing and keep them from following the lessons.
This research’s:
Some teaching strategies can be used to foster motivation and
provide better transfer opportunities to learn language skills.
Teachers should observe all students’ learning and provide them
the best learning circumstances. In designing teaching activities,
teachers should know that language learning focuses on both the
accuracy and appropriateness of application of using various
contexts, learners must be given opportunities to participate as
language users in multiple contexts. These opportunities will result
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in learners’ heightened motivation and awareness of the intricacies
use of language.
What can teachers do to facilitate students’ motivation?
(1) Encourage learners to take the initiative in learning.
(2) Promote intentional cognition or mindfulness to learn different
kinds of contexts.
(3) Increase authenticity of learning tasks and goals.
(4) Reduce learners’ anxiousness or other negative feelings when
they learn.
Quality of literature review
In my opinion, these two articles’ literature reviews don’t describe in
great detail. They just make known their researches’ background
and organized around the focused ideas with an assessment of
previous studies to tell their strengths and weaknesses. They all
offer explicit researches to support their theories. Their words are
clearly to expose the reasons why they have decided to do the
study. In their literature reviews they give the interpretation of some
ideas or definitions to the readers. They also critique and
synthesize the ideas from the old researches into a new one.
I think they are excellent literature reviews.
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