Post by irina on Nov 6, 2016 1:02:38 GMT 8
The article discusses motivation theory and describes different approaches to looking at motivation. The first approach, “integrative orientation”, viewed the social environment as the most important factor of learners’ motivation. Gardner and Lambert argued that the level of motivation to learn L2 is directly affected by the learner’s willingness to become a successful member of an L2 community. This approach fell under the criticism for ignoring more local aspects of learning such as individual motivation or the course itself. The focus was shifted from integrative orientation to the situated-cognitive approach where the attention was concentrated on learning context and the individual learner. The author of the article argues that both approaches were supplementary to each other, but neither of them was sufficient to grasp all the variety of motivation orientations.
Ema Ushinoda’s Process-oriented approach views the motivation as a product of the learning experience over time. The idea is that at first the learner engages into studying due to the positive learning experiences and then it later evolves into forming goals in acquiring L2. This idea finds later development in Self System designed by Dornyei. This system includes three parts in learning L2: ‘ideal self’, ‘ought to self’, and learning experience. ‘Ideal self’ is the representation of the learner’s vision of himself in the future in terms of using L2. The ‘ought to self’ is the standard that the learner thinks he/she should posess, e.g. in order to make parents happy. The learning experience part is similar to the earlier idea that the student only focuses on positive experience in the classroom and then later develops some goals.
The author states that not all the parts of Dornyei’s system are applicable for young learners: neither ‘ideal’ nor ‘ought to’ self can be used as YL haven’t developed strong understanding of self yet and therefore cannot be motivated by the image of it. However, the learning experience part is viewed as being suitable for the YL as they are only driven by their experience with the classroom, curriculum and content.
As for my experience in i2, I noticed that ‘ought to’ kind of motivation is quite common among my teenage students, when they are pushed to learn because they have to take exams and they want to please their parents. Younger students do not seem to be focused much on any goals and come to class to enjoy themselves.
Ema Ushinoda’s Process-oriented approach views the motivation as a product of the learning experience over time. The idea is that at first the learner engages into studying due to the positive learning experiences and then it later evolves into forming goals in acquiring L2. This idea finds later development in Self System designed by Dornyei. This system includes three parts in learning L2: ‘ideal self’, ‘ought to self’, and learning experience. ‘Ideal self’ is the representation of the learner’s vision of himself in the future in terms of using L2. The ‘ought to self’ is the standard that the learner thinks he/she should posess, e.g. in order to make parents happy. The learning experience part is similar to the earlier idea that the student only focuses on positive experience in the classroom and then later develops some goals.
The author states that not all the parts of Dornyei’s system are applicable for young learners: neither ‘ideal’ nor ‘ought to’ self can be used as YL haven’t developed strong understanding of self yet and therefore cannot be motivated by the image of it. However, the learning experience part is viewed as being suitable for the YL as they are only driven by their experience with the classroom, curriculum and content.
As for my experience in i2, I noticed that ‘ought to’ kind of motivation is quite common among my teenage students, when they are pushed to learn because they have to take exams and they want to please their parents. Younger students do not seem to be focused much on any goals and come to class to enjoy themselves.