Motivation Essay – Paul Armstrong (04 th March 2014)
Time Classroom events Student attention
5 minutes Brainstorm – Initial task to introduce topic to students and allow them to display their knowledge. All students attentive and reacted well to being able to shout out words and phrases they were familiar with.
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15 minutes
Grammatical task – In this case, explaining to the students the correct use of the prefix ‘the’ used with certain geographical features and countries. This task involved a lower degree of creativity from the students and thus I noticed that, whilst still attentive, their attention levels had decreased in comparison to the previous task.
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25 minutes Pair-work and subsequent worksheet - It is more difficult than before to generally classify the student attention level in pair-work as some seemed more enthusiastic than others and perhaps pairs contained one student who had grasped the grammatical concept more than others at this point in the lesson. The general level of attentiveness had not dropped from the previous task however perhaps no more than two students seemed less interested or involved than their respective partners.
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40 minutes Pair-work using whiteboard – For this particular task, I asked the students to differentiate between similar words (for example, canal and river). I felt that attention levels drifted away because the students seemed to struggle with this task. In this case, attentiveness and confidence had a direct correlation as both appeared to decrease during this task.
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50 minutes Correction slot – correcting errors noted throughout the lesson and asking students what they areas of the lesson they may have found difficult. The students’ attention was raised as they were able to open up and seek clarification.
They enjoyed being able to give their opinions and generally open up. Hence I noted that attentiveness had greatly increased from before.
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Frederick Herzberg’s motivational theory identifies six “true motivators” that need to be satisfied to make a person “truly motivated”; these are personal growth, advancement, responsibility, the work itself, recognition and achievement.
1 I found this to be reflected in my own research and this was highlighted during the pair-work on the whiteboard in which my students appeared to struggle with the task. In this case, certainly advancement, achievement and the work itself were lacking from these motivators and it is safe to say that their motivation and subsequently their attention dropped during this exercise. In contrast, for example, the brainstorm at the start of the lesson met all of Herzberg’s criteria and, as a result, motivation was high during this task.
I feel that Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” relates closely to my findings on pair-work. He claims that each of the eight levels can only be achieved when the preceding one has been satisfied. In the case of pair-work, level 5, concentrating on learning, can only be achieved if level 4, security in class, is met.
2 Within unbalanced pair-work, i.e. one student being much stronger than the other, the weaker student can begin to feel insecure and therefore, their concentration and motivation levels drop significantly and my findings echoed Maslow’s theory.
Similarly to Herzberg, David McClelland explores ideas of “achievement motivation”.
3 Admittedly, I found it more difficult to relate to McClelland’s theories as I only really explored one aspect of this during my lesson: the need for achievement. I made it one of my objectives to constantly reassure and compliment students when they got something right and this appeared to have a positive impact on their motivation and subsequent contribution to the class as this created the “sense of accomplishment” that McClelland discusses. The idea of ‘self-efficacy’ and self-belief is looked in to by Albert Bandura.
4 Similarly to McClelland’s “sense of accomplishment” notion, Bandura emphasises the importance of acknowledgement and I certainly noticed that praising the students as much as possible had a positive impact on their levels of motivation and, from my own experience with these students, this did not result in any levels of over-confidence.
David Ausubel avoids overuse of the idea of “motivation” opting to focus more on cognitive learning and this links in well to my consistent use of brainstorming during the initial phases of the majority of my lessons. 5 Via brainstorming, I allowed my students to integrate new material into their cognitive structures by seeking to make connections between the new information and that which they already know. I found this to be an extremely effective way of both encouraging learning and keeping motivation and attention at high levels.
I can closely relate my lesson plans in general to Jerome Bruner’s more ‘interactive’ way of teaching;
I found that with all lessons, the introduction of a general topic that the students can relate to captures their imagination and will inspire and motivate them. By doing this early on in the lesson, this enthusiasm and motivation carries over to slightly more arduous and grammatical tasks allowing he students to perform better in these. This was mirrored in the first and second phases of my lesson plans. However I found that verbal encouragement, in contrast to Bruner’s preferences, was also
1 Businessballs.com (2000) Frederick Herzberg - Motivational theory, motivators and hygiene factors, free herzberg diagrams. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm
2 Businessballs.com (1940) Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of needs and diagrams of Maslow's motivational theory - pyramid diagrams of Maslow's theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
3 Businessballs.com (1941) David McClelland - Achievement motivation needs theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
4 Instructionaldesign.org (1973) Albert Bandura - Social learning theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-learning.html
5 Instructionaldesign.org (1968) David Ausubel - Subsumption theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/subsumption-theory.html

motivational throughout.
6 I believe that his theories would be more effective when applied to advanced language students. In contrast, I think that the “behavioural reinforcement” notions of B. F.
Skinner would be more suited to motivating classes of lower-level students.
7
Similarly to some of the aforementioned experts, Robert Gagne aims to motivate via building up the confidence of students.
8 His theories can be justified from my fourth phase in the above lesson plan in which I felt that my students did not understand the task because perhaps I hadn’t set out more concrete aims and objectives that Gagne’s flow chart (9 instructional events) displays. My classroom observations, therefore, suggest that Gagne’s methods would motivate my students and I may look to take this in to account in future lesson planning.
I found Len Vygotsky’s concept of motivation revolving around a ZPD had some relevance to my student’s levels of motivation.
9 However the vague notion of “a task that is appropriately challenging will be motivating”, whilst true, is difficult to relate to a class where students have varying abilities.
Where one student may be motivated by an appropriately challenging task, a weaker student may become frustrated and demotivated and I have found this to be the case during previous lessons. His theory is certainly sound when applied to individuals but when teaching a class, it can be detrimental to a student’s motivation if a weaker student cannot understand or conversely a stronger student is insufficiently challenged.
Finally, Jean Piaget appears to suggest a difference between the learning techniques of children, adolescents and adults.
10 It was difficult to fully assess his motivational theory as my classes consisted entirely of adults and were tailored accordingly. His suggestions to “use teaching methods that actively involve students and present challenges” are generally echoed by other motivational theorists and it was clear that from my own classroom observations, actively involving students, for example during brainstorm sessions had a direct and positive correlation with their levels of motivation.
Overall, I deduced that an interactive lesson combined with stimulating but achievable challenges had the most positive impact on student’s motivation and, broadly speaking, this is comparable to the writings of motivational theorists.
6
Instructionaldesign.org (1990) Jerome Bruner - Constructivist theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html
7 Instructionaldesign.org (1950) B. F. Skinner - Operant conditioning. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operant-conditioning.html
8 Instructionaldesign.org (1992) Robert Gagne - Conditions of learning. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html
9 Instructionaldesign.org (1962) Lev Vygotsky - Social development theory. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html
10 Instructionaldesign.org (1982) Jean Piaget - Genetic epistemology. [online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/genetic-epistemology.html

Bibliography
Author
Abraham
Maslow
Frederick
Herzberg
David
McClelland
Businessballs.com (1940) Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of needs and diagrams of Maslow's motivational theory - pyramid diagrams of
Maslow's theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
Businessballs.com (2000) Frederick Herzberg - Motivational theory, motivators and hygiene factors, free herzberg diagrams. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm
Businessballs.com (1941) David McClelland - Achievement motivation needs theory. [online] Available at: http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
David Ausubel Instructionaldesign.org (1968) David Ausubel - Subsumption theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/subsumption-theory.html
Albert
Bandura
Instructionaldesign.org (1973) Albert Bandura - Social learning theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/sociallearning.html
Jerome Bruner Instructionaldesign.org (1990) Jerome Bruner - Constructivist theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html
Robert Gagne Instructionaldesign.org (1992) Robert Gagne - Conditions of learning.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html
B. F. Skinner Instructionaldesign.org (1950) B. F. Skinner - Operant conditioning.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operantconditioning.html
Lev Vygotsky Instructionaldesign.org (1962) Lev Vygotsky - Social development theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/socialdevelopment.html
Jean Piaget Instructionaldesign.org (1982) Jean Piaget - Genetic epistemology.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/geneticepistemology.html