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10 thoughts on “Krashen on Motivation”
I just read the article and find it a good reminder for us teachers to continue to improve how compelling the input that we offer is. If I can do the dance of QandA having “conversations” with the students in the TL about their weekend, their lives, etc. it may well be much more compelling than any novel. But, novels often offer ways to parallel QandA that ends up being compelling too.
On a personal level, I am still seeking to improve my German, because I have not reached the elusive 10 on the ACTFL tests. But, I’m not interested in taking classes or studying. I just want to have fun and meet people and read texts that are enjoyable for me in German. I could care less about reading most of the German classics. So, if I want to improve my proficiency (which I do) I need to find compelling mediums. Right now I’m still searching, so I’m in limbo. I really liked a German tv show until they stopped making new episodes đ
I find the title and opening statement of the article misleading, though they may simply be deliberately provocative.
Throughout the article Krashen shows that motivation played a crucial role in language acquisition; it just wasn’t motivation to learn a language. It was, however, motivation to learn or experience something that was available only in the target language. Jack was motivated to experience more of the “A Fan Ti” stories, Paul was motivated to experience the cartoons and other programs offered on CD and TV, and the recovered dyslexics were motivated to find out more about “a passionate personal interest”.
Without motivation of some sort, students in language classrooms will be highly resistant to language acquisition, no matter how well behaved they may be (but usually they are the ones who cause the greatest “management” problems). Unless they at least want to know what everyone else is laughing about, they will simply tune out the extraneous noise.
Although anecdotal, the evidence is there. My students who have a reason to learn the language do better than those who do not. Some have a relative or friend with whom they want to talk; some want to travel to Germany and talk to people. The motivation is not the language per se, but motivation is there. I had a student who wanted to learn more about WWII, and the information he wanted was in German, so he spent a lot of time reading about WWII in German. His motivation wasn’t to learn German but to learn about WWII. Nonetheless, motivation was there.
All Krashen’s article does is make clear that the challenge for teachers is to make the class time interesting and compelling. We have to create conditions under which students want something that is available to them only in the target language. Unfortunately, in most school settings there is little that interests students that they can’t get in English. For example, we try to pique their interest by talking about them, but all of that information is available and more understandable if they speak English – hence the blurting. We have to create artificial rules that forbid English, but if we can come up with items of interest that are available only in the target language then we give them motivation for paying attention in the target language. In my classroom, I teach students how to say “I have to go to the bathroom”, “May I go to my locker?”, “May I get some water?”, and “I would like 1/2/3/4 packages of Gummy Bears”. It is amazing how quickly students who want those things learn how to say them because they know that there is no chance of getting it if they don’t say it in German. Students who don’t want one of those things can go the whole year without ever learning those phrases, even though they are exposed to them regularly as other students say them and I repeat them back. Motivation is key.
Stories are one way for us to provide something students can get only in the target language. By creating something new (the story) that is available only in the target language, we provide the motivation to acquire unconsciously because students are focused on meaning. Once again, experience shows that students who are most involved in the stories and most motivated to listen because they are interested in what is happening are also the students who most quickly acquire the language. (I bumped two students up from German 2 to German 3 at the beginning of this year because they were highly motivated and had acquired more German than anyone else in the class. One wants to go to Germany at the end of his senior year and the other (autistic, BTW) simply enjoys playing with words, making puns, etc.)
However, to accomplish providing students with something that they can get only in the target language, we must be absolutely insistent that there be no English. If we allow “two words” (but actually far more) of English, students don’t have to listen. If we allow a student to whisper the English to someone who is struggling to understand, we both take away the motivation to learn the language and discourage a very important though increasingly rare character trait: perseverance. (I think this plays into some of the things being said in the book “Mindset”.)
Just some random thoughts. Thanks for the link, Eric.
Your last paragraph there, Robert, reads like a knife in my heart. Thanks for the reminder, and here’s to trying my stupid best tomorrow.
James, it’s something with which I struggle as well. I am speaking from a perspective of striving after certain things; I certainly haven’t arrived.
And James, this from Robert speaks to me:
…if we allow âtwo wordsâ (but actually far more) of English, students donât have to listen….
For three years I allowed this. I even changed one of the Classroom Rules to read like that, with two words allowed. Blaine didn’t say anything, Robert didn’t, people were polite. But I was wrong. We strive to stay in the target language.
Hi all,
After seeing Ben at CCFLT in Denver on Saturday and talking about this new article by Krashen with him and Nina Barber, a Bill VanPatten quote that I have been mulling on for a while came to mind. Here it is for your viewing pleasure :
“âIndependently of all the empirical research there is one overwhelming truth to adult second language competence and abilities: the only learners who become advanced are those who have lots of exposure to input and interaction with speakers of the language. These learners study abroad, work and live abroad, marry into the L2 culture or otherwise have a good deal of contact with the language in communicative situations. No learner who is restricted to learning in [a classroom] sense becomes advanced in the same way. So, adults do need access to input-and lots of it. And what they do is abandon learning at some point and become acquirers.â
Cheers everyone , it’s only October and we only have 8 more months to go…
VanPatten: input + interaction, classroom not enough to become advanced
Makes you ask what is it about the interaction that is beneficial – meaning-based input AND meaning-based output?
Also, the comment about present-day classrooms is true, but do we really know the potential of getting good CI from an elementary, secondary, and a tertiary program? Regardless, total time on CI to become advanced is likely more than any school system can provide.
The point I see Krashen trying to make is that acquisition happens when “motivated” to understand the language.
It is the language content itself that motivates. That motivation doesn’t come from within the student – hence the “end of motivation.”
If our students could be compelled to read, then that is probably the best way to provide the most individualized (comprehensible to their level) and greatest quantity of input. Once students can read faster than they can listen they can get more input from reading.
It’s not so much the “to language or not to language” motivation I struggle with in students, but the “to school or not to school” variety. Everything about school is trite. They are therefore bored by default and don’t know what to do with me.
…everything about school is trite. They are therefore bored by default and donât know what to do with me….
Shhh. Don’t say that too loud, James. There are new teachers reading here. But what you say must be said and those new teachers must know this. In non-school settings, storytelling as a way to teach a language can be one of the truly great things in life. Truly great and full of joy. Limitless creativity and in a foreign language to boot.
But, as you indicate, school is like a lead weight around the neck of children, and clouds their blinder-clad eyes from even knowing the joy available in their TPRS/CI class that could happen if they were but in some other setting than a school.
So you describe the reality exactly, James. But can we get out of it? We each must make that decision. If it is a living hell, like it is for far more of us than would ever admit it, they should get out if they can afford to. But if we want to do what we love and teach languages, well, we can’t make livings doing this outside of schools, not really.
And besides, if you look at the world right now, that’s not where the work is. The work for us is in schools. That’s the way it is set up by the Big Dude Who Sets Things Up.
Now, unless you want 96% of your kids to hate learning languages and to think that they are stupid at it, shut up and go back in and teach another class. I say that to you with the greatest love knowing from last summer what you are capable of, which is vast.
I love that it is you and the teachers in our group who are doing that, who are closing the door at the start of five classes a day and going in to what is arguably a kind of hell state in those classrooms (let’s fricking say it, people!) and at least trying this stuff with their kids every day.
What souls you are! This weekend I spoke with a DPS teacher whose year last year would make hell look like a happy place, and she told me that this year that things are going much better and she has hope that storytelling might even work for her, although, like Angie, she probably gets up each morning, as Angie put it in her report, “Iâm still waking up in a panic most mornings, but Iâm beginning to see…”.
I heard once that the definition of a saint is someone who does what they don’t want to do and doesn’t do what they want to do. Well, if that is accurate, then you guys are all saints. You give hope to me as a language teachers and as a parent.
Think of the parents! Good lord have mercy, if they really knew the deal about language acquisition, and weren’t part of the herds of sheep on this deal, which way of teaching do you think they would want for their children? Hello!
So James just go do what Stevie tells you right here at 4:12:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXsnAVLQ9_U