Student Motivation

I’m sure we’ve all taught CL classes where controlling and motivating students can be a real challenge. This student is always answering out of turn, that student has difficulty focusing, and that student is unwilling to participate. And all the students have difficulty producing accurate full sentence answers.

It is for these reasons that a teacher may choose to employ a class long point system. Typically the competitive nature of a two team scoring system is chosen because children of this age react strongly, but not, of course, necessarily positively, to competition.

A traditionally executed point system allows the teacher to reward students for good behavior, participation and accurate speaking. Less desired behaviors, like speaking Chinese or distracting other students, can be addressed through the awarding of points to the ‘culprit’s’ competition.
While there are certainly advantages to running a point system in this way, there can also be very negative effects on student motivation even within a given class.

Have you ever had a class where within 30 minutes one team had dramatically ‘outscored’ their competition? Did you ask yourself why? And what effect did it have on the ‘losing’ team for the rest of the class? Were you able to pump them up and encourage them to do better? (Which is in essence telling them in reverse they are failing).

Have you noticed that quieter students feel more pressure under this type of point system to produce language? Teachers often give the biggest rewards to students producing the ‘best’ language. What message does this send a student with confidence issues? Does this type of reward fall in line with the view that mistakes are not only expected but encouraged?
And what about you, the teacher? Have you felt the pressure of being the police, jury, and judge of your class? Have students questioned your fairness in rewarding points or taking them away? Are you able to be consistent in your execution of the point system?

Most research in this area shows that rewards can have the effect of devaluing the work that leads to the reward by making the child focus on external rewards rather than their own feelings of success and satisfaction.

Also rewards are only motivating if you get them – for those who don’t, or who have very little prospect of getting one, a rewards system is anything but motivating.

I know I have personally struggled with these issues in my CL classes. There are however some simple adjustments to a two team scoring system which can lead to better overall student motivation.

You and your TA should be very mindful of seating arrangements and actively create the most equal and balanced teams in terms of co-operation and ability levels. Only 9 students in a class? Make two teams of four and five students which are even by the general ability of the ‘team’. Or in such a class where one student does not work well with others, have him sign a ‘contract’ on a promise of a great class and let him choose which team he would like to join. Have 3 girls and 6 boys in a class? Make three teams of three, again thinking carefully about who works well with others and evening out ability levels. The most important factor is that teams not be randomly created in such a way that there is a risk of unbalance, with one team soon running away from the rest.

Praise all positive contributions to class. (Not only those most audible and visible). When highlighting positive contributions keep in mind all children deserve praise and encouragement, not only those sitting as upright as a statue or producing language loud and clear. You notice Suzy, although quiet, has not taken her eyes off you for an extended period of time. Stop the class to praise her for good focus.

Instead of rewarding students with a point value determined by you, which can be difficult to justify and may over time been seen as unfair by students, reward students with a chance for a random amount of points. When any student makes a positive contribution to class worth praising, reward them with a chance to roll the dice and award their team the numeric value in points. I think you can imagine what it would mean for a student who is rarely praised in class to roll a six for his or her team. Likewise if they roll a one they will be more likely to remain invested because they feel that their contribution can have real meaning. The important factor is to link praise to positive contributions and rewards to a random system.

Also think about how you give feedback. Even very young children quickly develop an image of themselves in the classroom and can usually identify who is the ‘best’ in the class, who is the ‘weakest’, etc. They do this by monitoring and comparing the feedback that the teacher gives to each child. This, of course, affects their view of themselves – and how capable they think they are. Make sure you give positive, encouraging feedback.

Remember motivation is directly related to self-esteem. Children who have low levels of self-esteem do not commit themselves to learning. None of us want to fail, which is why failing students often pretend that they are not interested – they do this to protect their self-image. It is very important, therefore, that we try to help the children develop a positive image of themselves as language learners and create feelings of success, not failure. Secondly, motivation is directly related to a sense of being in control. As humans, we are always more committed to something if we have had a role in making a decision about it. It is also important, therefore, that children are involved, as thinking, creating beings, in making decisions over what they are doing.