CHAPTER 1
HOW CAN YOU GET MOTIVATION TO APPLY ENGLISH
LANGUAGE?
HOW CAN YOU GET MOTIVATION TO APPLY ENGLISH
LANGUAGE?
MOTIVATION: Motivation is also defined as the impetus to create and sustain
intentions and goal-seeking acts. It is important because it determines the
extent of the learner's active involvement and attitude toward learning.
Motivation is a desire to achieve a goal, combined with the energy to work
towards that goal.
Many researchers consider motivation as one of the main elements that
determine success in developing a second or foreign language; it determines
the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning.
Positive and negative motivation
Sometimes a distinction is made between positive and negative motivation.
Positive motivation is a response which includes enjoyment and optimism about
the tasks that you are involved in.
Negative motivation involves undertaking tasks for fear that there should be
undesirable outcomes, eg. failing a subject, if tasks are not completed.
Motivation involves 4 aspects:
1.- A Goal
2.-An Effort
3.-A Desire to attain the goal
4.- Favorable Attitude toward the activity in question.
Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language.
Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the
possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.
It is helpful to read an article about the advantages of knowing English well.
There are two such articles on Antimoon: Why learn English and English makes
you feel good.
You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other
people who have done it.
Remember that you are already good
You already know some English (you’re reading an album in English right now).
That’s a big success! Now it’s time for more successes. Time to start using
powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge
of English.
Remember there is a lot that you don’t know
You are good, but your English probably isn’t perfect. You probably can’t
understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers
easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.
You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student
in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When
you’ve learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small:
punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding “street
language”. Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in
pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect
tense and conditional structures.
Use English whenever you can
Probably the most important way to improve your motivation is to use English.
Using English is fun. It is simply very enjoyable to use your English to read a
good book, understand a song, watch an interesting movie, get an answer to a
computer problem, exchange e-mails with a native speaker, etc. The more you
use English, the more you will want to use it.
This is great, because using English is learning English. When you’re reading
an interesting article or watching an exciting movie, you are using your English,
but you are also learning new words and phrases. When you’re writing a
message on an English-language discussion forum, you are using your English,
but you are also practicing your writing.
But using English can also improve your general attitude to English and
increase your motivation to study English in other ways. For example, if you see
that your knowledge of English pronunciation helps you understand a movie or
speak more clearly, you will be motivated to study pronunciation even more. If
you see that checking your sentences in a search engine lets you write errorfree e-mail messages, you will want to keep doing that. If you memorize some
words with SuperMemo and later you come across them in a movie or an
article, you will want to add even more things to SuperMemo.
Talk to people about english
You usually talk about things which interest you. But the opposite is true, too. If
you start talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it.
Imagine you are studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but
you have to pass the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two
options: you can tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell
those people about the things you’ve learned. If you choose the first option, you
will only feel worse.
If you choose the second option, and start a conversation on the “boring”
subject, you will begin to look at it in a totally different way. Suddenly it will
become a subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject.
How can you begin such a conversation? If you’re studying English, you can
surprise another person by talking to him/her in English. Say (in English): Hi, I’m
studying English and I hate it. Or you can say (in your first language): Hey, I’ve
learned 50 English words today. Do you know what’s the English word for ...? If
there are no people near you, you can telephone or send an e-mail message to
your friend.
What will your friends say? Probably they won’t be very interested, but it doesn’t
matter! The important thing is this: After talking about English, you will study it
with more passion. Try it.
Find a friend who is learning english
If you can find a friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill,
you will be in an excellent situation:
you will have someone to talk about English with. These conversations will
increase your interest in English, as explained in the previous section.
learning English will be easier, because you will be able to discuss your
problems with your friend.
you will study English more, because you will want to be better than your friend.
You should meet your friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or
go to the same school as you. If you absolutely can’t find anybody willing to
learn English with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse
solution: your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to
compete with someone who you don’t know well.
Spend some money on learning english
If you spend your money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if
you buy an expensive tennis racket, you will probably go out and play tennis
every day.
This rule is also true for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to
learn English, buy a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book,
English-language cable TV, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will
want to use it, and you will improve your English.
There is a problem with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually
lose your desire to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would
have to buy something every week!
However, this method is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start
learning. For example, if you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably
learn some words from it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write
an e-mail message with these words. This will increase your motivation (as
explained before), and you will learn more.
Why learn English
Learning to speak English well may be the best thing you can do to improve
your life.
That’s right. Do you think it would be fun tohave access to information that other
people can’t get? Talk and write letters to interesting people that others can’t
communicate with? Impress people around you whenever you opened your
mouth? Make big jumps in yourcareer, leaving others miles behind?
You can get all this if you speak English well.
Get access to knowledge
What are you interested in? Is it science? Music? Computers? Health?
Business? Sports? Today’s media — such as the Internet, television, and the
press — give you almost unlimited access to knowledge about your favorite
subjects. After all, we live in the information age, don’t we?
There’s only one problem. Most of this knowledge is in English.
Here are some examples of knowledge you can use if you know
English:

Most pages on the Web. That’s over a billion (1,000,000,000) pages of
information! It’s amazing that learning just one language gives you
access to almost all knowledge on the Internet.

Books — on any subject, from all over the world. Read books by British
or American authors, and books translated from other languages.
Whatever you’re interested in, you can read about it in English!

The press. Only English-language magazines and newspapers can be
bought in every part of the world. You don’t have to search for Time,
Newsweek, or the International Herald Tribune!

Science. English is the key to the world of science. In 1997, 95% of the
articles in the Science Citation Index were written in English. Only about
50% of them were from English-speaking countries like the USA or
Britain. (source)

News reports. Watch international television networks, such as CNN
International and NBC. They broadcast news much faster, and more
professionally, than smaller, national networks. And you can watch them
every where in the world.
Communicate with people
We like to call English “the language of communication”. Why? Because it
seems all the people in the world have agreed to use English to talk to each
other.
About 1,500,000,000 people in the world speak English. Another 1,000,000,000
are learning it. (source)
75% of the world’s letters and postcards are written in English. (source)
Almost all international conferences and competitions are conducted in English.
For example, the Olympics and the Miss World contest.
Diplomats and politicians from different countries use English to communicate
with each other. English is the main language of organizations like the United
Nations, NATO, and the European Free Trade Association.
If you can communicate in English, you can:
Contact people from all over the world. Talk about your ideas and opinions on
Internet discussion groups. Send e-mail to interesting people. Learn about their
life and culture.
Travel more easily. Communicate with people wherever you go — English is
spoken in more than 100 countries (source). Ask directions, have a
conversation, or... ask for help. Who knows, maybe English will save your life
someday!
Push your career forward
If you want a good job in business, technology, or science, get out of that
armchair and start learning English now! (If you already have a good job, start
learning before you lose it!)
Knowing English will let you:

Put “excellent knowledge of English” on your CV. Get your dream job,
and earn more money.

Gain technical knowledge. English is the language of technology,
especially high technology like computer science, genetics, and
medicine. If you’re going to read about technology, you’ll probably have
to do it in English.

Learn computer science. Read technical articles without difficulty. Or
write your own articles!

Be a world-class businessman (or -woman). It’s simple. International
business is done in English. And all business today is international. So if
you want to play, you have to know English — to contact other
businesspeople,
go
to
conferences,
read
international
business
newspapers and magazines, etc.

Become a better scientist. Contact scientists from other countries, go to
international conferences, visit academic centers abroad. Learn about
new scientific discoveries by reading papers, books, and magazines.

Use your computer more effectively. Most computer applications are in
English, so you will understand them better — and become a better
employee.

Learn new skills for your job. The section “Get access to knowledge”
explains how English helps you learn.

Enjoy art like never before.
English lets you feel the culture of the world like no other language.
With a good knowledge of the English language, you can do
wonderful things:

Watch American and British films in the original. Once you try it, you’ll
never go back to dubbed versions!

Read great books. Every famous book was written in English or it was
translated into English. There is an amazing number of titles — from
classic plays like Hamlet to modern thrillers like Jurassic Park.

Enjoy English-language music more. Believe us: music is much better if
you can understand the words.
English is easy to learn
English is not only the most useful language in the world. It is also one of the
easiest languages to learn and to use:
Simple alphabet — no special symbols such as é or ä. Type in sweet, part, film
on your computer. Now try süß (German), część (Polish), фильм (Russian).
Which is easier?
Easy plurals — simply add s to a word. One car, five cars; one telephone, two
telephones... There are very few exceptions.
Words are easy to learn. In French, it’s la fille and le chien. In German, it’s das
Mädchen and der Hund. In English, they’re just a girl and a dog. And that’s all
you need to know.
Short words. Most of the basic words are short: run, work, big, go, man. Long
words are often shortened: sitcom = situational comedy, fridge = refrigerator,
OS = operating system. Speaking English saves you time.
Words don’t change. But in many languages, one word has many forms:
English: The man is blind.
.
English: This is a blind man.
English: I see a blind man.
Call everybody “you”. You can say “Do you speak English?” to your friend or to
your teacher. In other languages, you have to use the right word for the right
person. In English, everybody is equal. :-)
English is everywhere. You can easily access English-language television,
music, websites, magazines, etc. You don’t have to learn from boring textbooks.
You can learn and use your English at the same time. Using your English is
especially important because it increases your desire to learn.
Get satisfaction English is not only useful — it gives you a lot of
satisfaction:
Making progress feels great. We’ll never forget the moment we discovered we
could speak with Americans or watch TV in English.
You will enjoy learning English, if you remember that every hour you spend gets
you closer to perfection.
Using English is fun, too, because every sentence you speak or write reminds
you of your success.
English makes you a more powerful, happier person. It is not difficult to imagine
some situations where knowing English gives you a great feeling.