EFFECTIVE MOTIVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Mehmet Ali SEVEN
Dr., Atatürk University, School of Foreign Language, Erzurum, Turkey.
(mseven@atauni.edu.tr)
Ali Osman ENGİN
Assistant Professor, Dr., Kafkas University, Faculty of Education, Kars, Turkey.
(a.osmanengin@mynet.com)
ABSTRACT
This research is about the importance of the integrative, instrumental, and
work avoidance motivation in second language learning and being successful. Firstly,
we had a motivation questionnaire then we applied this questionnaire and the
achievement test to 90 students in Education Faculty English Department. Before the
motivation questionnaire (Goal Orientation Scales), we want the questionnaires to be
honest because it is necessary for the reality of results. At last, the results show us the
students mostly study for learning something about English. In addition, we saw that
the students avoid doing homework or studying hard. You can find differences in sex
while learning a foreign language.
In this research, you can find relation between the integrative, instrumental,
work avoidance and the success of second language learning.
Key Words: Second Language Learning, Motivation Questionnaire,
Effective Motivation in Language Learning, Differences in
Sex While Learning a Foreign Language.
Section: COMMENTARY
TAPPING THE WELLSPRINGS OF KNOWLEDGE
Recently, the president of a large New York bank admitted before a congressional panel that his
employees had not posed enough questions about a ballooning account from Russia. Faced with
suspicions that the billions of dollars in this account were being laundered or diverted from
International Monetary Fund loans, the bank president concluded that his institution needed "a
culture of inquisitiveness."
Such an observation applies not only to banks but to all institutions, including schools. By and
large, our society has grown through the ingenuity, fierce independence, courage, and curiosity of
its citizens. The amazing growth of business and industry, artistic expression, and scientific
accomplishment attests to this.
But recently, several events in our national life have caused me to take a closer look at schools
and what they can do to foster a sense of inquisitiveness in all students.
The Challenger disaster in January of 1986, for example, might have been prevented, had
employees from Morton Thiokol and other contractors asked, with sufficient deliberateness and
conviction, if it was safe to launch the space shuttle in the subzero temperatures that prevailed
that fateful day. Two engineers, Roger Boisjoly and Arnie Thompson, had raised questions about
the launch date. But their doubts and uncertainties failed to make an impression on
decisionmakers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Similarly, we might have averted bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during our 1999
campaign against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, had one NATO officer persisted in his
questioning. After examining a CIA-approved target image, he questioned whether it was the
designated "warehouse." But, again, his questions did not rise up the ladder of authority.
And 12 Texas A&M University students might still be alive today, had anyone in that campus
culture thought to question the safety and wisdom of the traditional bonfire lit before the football
game with the University of Texas. As an investigative report concluded, "No credible source
ever suspected or thought to inquire about structure safety." No one challenged the tradition, now
a century old, of constructing and burning a three-story log structure that undergraduates were
allowed to modify.
These events may be isolated examples of the unforeseen consequences that can flow from a lack
of inquisitiveness. And the fact that they occurred in educational, governmental, and military
organizations with rather rigid lines of authority may tell us something about how command-andcontrol organizations work, compared with business entities like Microsoft and Enron. Where
market forces prevail and profit is the bottom line, we tend to see more of a sense of innovation
and inquiry.
Why is curiosity so important, and what can we do to create a more embedded culture of
inquisitiveness within schools and society? Here are three points from which to start:
• Every child growing up learns about the world by exploring everything in sight--asking, in
effect, "What is it? What does it feel and taste like?" Curiosity is the beginning of meaningful
learning.
• Developing a child's curiosity during the very early years of life is what fosters brain growth
and development, as the neuroanatomist Marion Diamond notes in Magic Trees of the Mind. She
advocates creating "enriched environments" for kids, full of novelties, toys, and challenges to
help them inquire and grow intellectually, emotionally, physically, and socially.
• Science, art, and the humanities--indeed, all of civilization--advance through our drive to ask
questions and search for answers. We have only to look at the lives of Leonardo da Vinci,
Thomas Jefferson, Marie Curie, Toni Morrison, and others to support this notion.
As presently constituted, however, many schools, from kindergarten through graduate school,
reflect a preference for keeping students passively in their seats, listening to presentations of
information they need to memorize and return in toto when asked. But there is hope for creating
cultures of inquisitiveness within our schools.
The novelist Anatole France concluded that "the whole art of teaching is only the art of
awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." And
the late astronomer and popularizer of science Carl Sagan amended that goal to include
developing students' abilities to examine possibilities critically, with a healthy skepticism.
How could we go about working toward the goals of Anatole France and Carl Sagan?
First, we need to reorient our instructional and curricular practices toward a focus on solving
authentic problems that challenge students to think productively. Many teachers already are doing
this, helping their students think through the most complex issues in the process.
For example, at the beginning of a unit on Africa, Cheryl Hopper, a high school teacher in
Paramus, N.J., challenged her students to come up with their own questions for the unit. One of
the questions was "How and why did powerful kingdoms emerge in Africa, especially West
Africa?" Her 9th graders thoroughly researched this and other questions, then used the knowledge
they had gained to make simulated recommendations for economic development to a
representative of the World Bank.
Similarly, Ann White, an elementary school teacher in East Orange, N.J., led her 4th graders on
an expedition to a local geological site after they had first devised their own set of questions
about rocks and minerals. One question particularly amazed me: "Would there be volcanoes
without plate tectonics?" Here was an average 4th grader, tackling the complexities of continental
drift and plate tectonics, sensing a relationship no one had made explicit to her until she posed the
question to a geologist.
Both Cheryl Hopper and Ann White are model educators for what The New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman has called "the Internet Century." Their students are completely at
home researching topics on the World Wide Web, and they reflect the kind of openness to
restructuring curriculum around authentic, problematic situations that stimulate students'
inquisitiveness.
Next, we need to reflect on Don Tapscott's assertion, in Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net
Generation, that our students today represent "an ethos of curiosity and investigation" different
from that of those who sat for hours on their couches passively soaking up images from
television. We know that many of our students are wizards when it comes to navigating the
millions of "pages" available on the Web, and that they can solve many problems associated with
the production of software-enhanced "products." One thing that fascinates me is the number of K12 students who have already become authors of their own work on the Web, posting the results
of their investigations on sites like "Angelfire" and elsewhere. This generation is more in
command of its own learning, and we must encourage them.
Third, we need principals who want to be leaders of communities of inquiry within their schools.
What would this look like? Probably like the schools that Roland S. Barth describes in Improving
Schools From Within, where his preferred professional-development model included encouraging
teachers to pose good questions about the teaching and learning processes within their
classrooms. Inquiry can then proceed by using study groups similar to those supported by
university teacher colleges, in networks of regional schools and through professionaldevelopment schools.
Finally, we can all learn from the family example of Isidore I. Rabi, the noted physicist and
Nobel Prize winner for his work on the electron. Mr. Rabi said that when he came home from
school as a child, his mother did not ask him, "So, what did you learn in school today?" Instead,
she asked, "Izzy, did you ask a good question today?" That difference--asking good questions--is
what made him be come a scientist, the Nobel laureate maintained.
If we were to challenge all our children and students to ask a "good question" daily, perhaps they
would grow up within cultures of inquisitiveness that considered such questions as these:
What must we do to ensure that all citizens have equal access to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness?"
To what extent are we, the adults, willing to share power and control over decision-making with
our children and students in pursuit of knowledge and understanding?
What is an educator's role in helping the Internet generation navigate, understand, and use that
medium for sound educational purposes and not to engage in harmful hacking operations that can
cripple businesses, government, and even cell-phone operations?
In which kinds of authentic settings, both formal and informal, can all our students best learn to
become curious, self-directed, morally uptight citizens who are able to collaborate with others on
real and important endeavors?
How can we establish partnerships within and among schools and their publics to develop
communities of inquiry that are willing to ask the hard questions about teaching and learning?
These are only some of the questions we should be considering in our national conversation as
we move into this millennium. What are the others?
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE)
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By John Barell
John Barell is a former professor of curriculum at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and
is currently a consultant in professional development to the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City.