Today, I am going to discuss the motivation theory and use a class I observed to write about the theory put to a real life example. By the end of this reading, you will know whether or not, I think motivation is an essential part of teaching English.

At the beginning of the class the students were very attentive, because it was the first class of the day and the teacher had a nice, familiar song that the students were enjoying. After the song was finished, the teacher began talking again, the motivation dropped until the teacher announced that they would be working in groups, which got every student in the class excited. I think the motivation was very high because it was a well-known song and it got the students very excited. When the teacher gave direct, short instructions the students were more interested, than when the teacher gave longer instructions. This is because it is usually harder to follow longer directions, because there is so much being said and if it is in a foreign language it is even harder. Group work gets everyone talking and working on the specific tasks.

Throughout the class, the students lost interest at certain times. When the teacher gave praise to the students, they regained their interest. The students were more attentive when clear goals were used. When the students worked alone some of them were getting frustrated with themselves and gave up working with the activity. The students were a lot more interested when they were talking or in groups talking. When the teacher was talking, even though, she was giving information. Some of the students lost focus. I think the cause of this is because when you are talking to other people and are involved, there is satisfaction. Where if you are listening to someone talk, sometimes they are long-winded and you can easily loose focus. The time when the students were least attentive was while the grammar was being taught. The TTT (teacher talking time) made the students loose focus and also they already knew what was being taught in this particular class. A good way to solve this problem would be to challenge the students more in what is being taught.

When the teacher introduced the pictures to class, they regained their motivation to maximum, because they were trying to figure out what the pictures meant. The teacher kept asking questions throughout this activity to get the students on top of things. The students who attended this class were intrinsically motivated. They were excited to be in the class and for no other reason than because of their love of the language. There was one part in the lesson where the teacher was going around asking questions to individual students and it seemed that some of the student's interest dropped until it was their turn. It was at that time when that student's motivation got high and the other students lost a little.

When the students had a clear task (like a worksheet, or a group activity), they enjoyed it much more. They knew what they had to do. If one person finished, then they had to wait until the teacher was ready to move on. The student lost a little motivation, until this particular student offered their help to another student and in doing so he regained interest. The teacher then thanked him for helping that student and he got even more confidence.

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