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Dr. Liam Printer - 'The Motivated Classroom' Educational Consultant, Author, Researcher
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Maintaining motivation in the online classroom

19/4/2020

4 Comments

 
The large and ever expanding evidence base behind Self-Determination Theory tells us intrinsic motivation is fostered by meeting the three basic psychological needs:  Autonomy, competence and relatedness. 
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This is true for students as well as for ourselves as teachers. Essentially as humans, we want to feel like we have some choice we want to feel like we can do it and we want to feel connected. Hit those three needs and you are developing intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation leads to engaging in a task voluntarily out of pure enjoyment, interest and excitement. This differs from extrinsic motivation where we might complete a task out of fear, or in order to benefit from a reward of some kind.

Plan to motivate

Think of something you really like doing… now ask yourself does it meet those three needs? ​
Let’s say you love reading: you get to choose the book, the pace you go at, the author etc.
Autonomy. Tick. ✅

You understand it, you feel like you’re in the story, you're learning about the characters or the topic, you get it.
Competence. Tick. ✅

You connect to the characters, or you love discussing the book with other avid reader friends.
Relatedness. Tick. ✅

​You are intrinsically motivated to read. The same can be done for any activity you choose freely to engage in out of pure interest and enjoyment.
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Now think about our last online lesson. Did we plan activities for our students that meet those needs? Probably not! Why? Because it is not easy! This online teaching stuff is a steep learning curve and most of us are just trying to keep our heads above water and not lose the plot entirely! I’m with you.

So… how can we transfer what we know about self-determination theory to the online classroom in order to maintain intrinsic motivation among our students and ourselves, as teachers? It can feel a lot more difficult to hit those three basic psychological needs from our own sitting room, without the smiling (and bewildered!) faces of our students in front of us. But with some modifications to our planning we can get there.

✅#RemoteTeaching Day #15:
With many #langchat #teachers & colleagues starting #onlineclasses today, here are my Top 3 Tips after 3 weeks of this:

□‍□Let them see you
□Get them moving
⬇️Lower the expectations

If you find these videos useful, give it a □ or share. Gracias □ pic.twitter.com/96Da3hfL4V

— Liam Printer (@liamprinter) April 6, 2020

My top four tips for motivation

Here are my top four tips to keep the motivation up in the online classroom for students and teachers:
  1. Let them see you: If you are using video software for your classes, this is great. Smile, be silly, talk about what you are doing in this lockdown period, show them your favourite hat, or your new hairstyle. Whatever. Just be yourself and chat to them. This builds connections and maintains the relationships. If you are not allowed to use video software, then make a few short youtube videos like these ones. They don’t have to be public if you don’t want that but the kids miss you. They want to see your face. And unbelievably, they find the most mundane things about our lives super interesting. Remember, they think we don’t exist outside the school walls so showing them your favourite plant in your apartment can blow their minds!
  2. Get them moving: They are sitting all day… alllll day. Just as we are. So do activities that get them out of their seats. As language teachers this is a chance to give more comprehensible input: “Find me something small and green in your house, you have 1 minute” or “stand up, add these numbers and sit when you have the answer”. Or ‘Simon says’. Anything that gets them moving, keeps them engaged, keeps them listening to your input and builds relationships. Even better if you do the activity too. They’ll be smiling and giggling at you trying too. This also builds their competence as they are listening, understanding and following along. The competence is developed even further if you make a big deal out of the cool item they found, or awesome t-shirt they've on.
  3. Lower the expectations: Online teaching and learning is simply not the same as the real classroom. Lower your learning objectives. Actively take things out of your units & curriculum. This is the time to be creative and do cool new things. Don’t worry about ‘being behind’... Behind who?? Or behind what?? We are all in this together. Now is not the time to over-burden with loads of exercises. Focus on motivation, not examination. Plan your lesson with detailed steps. Then when you are done, take one step out. Put it in the next lesson. This helps their competence as they feel like they are making it to the end each day. What about those learners who want extension activities? No worries. Have some youtube links ready or some extra reading or even better, some creative project to work on. 
  4. Open up the choices: Autonomy is not about going off on your own tangent every time. It is about choice, self-direction and having some say in where things are going. Ask the students to vote on the tasks for the next class, give them 3 or 4 options of ways to show their learning. Let them be creative and make videos about topics you are doing. Give them the creative license and autonomy and you will be amazed and what they give you back. Especially those quiet students who say nothing in the video chat sessions.

Keep the conversation going

I’m tweeting out a little 2 minute video every day (like the one above) with hints and tips that I have learned from online teaching. I am on that steep learning curve too but it’s great to share and get the conversation going. You can follow the updates here. Would love to know your thoughts!

Please leave your comments below! 
​#TogetherWeAreStronger #MotivationNotExamination

4 Comments

Error correction and feedback: How much is too much?

6/10/2019

4 Comments

 
As a language acquisition teacher, we are tasked with helping our students write (as well as speak) accurately. We all know that feeling when we take up a piece of work and we see those errors that we feel like we have repeated a million times in class already! I am sure we also remember that feeling when we were a student: getting back a piece of work that we felt like we had worked so hard on, but it is covered in the teacher’s red pen. So how should we go about error correction and feedback then? How many errors do we correct? How do we ensure the feedback is meaningful and used to push the student’s learning forward, rather than so deflating that it pushes them back?

In short, the language acquisition research argues that most students can actually acquire only 3-4 new words or phrases per 1 hour lesson. Yes, that is all. By acquire I mean, the word or phrase is engrained in long term memory and recall. The same is true with error correction and feedback in writing. If you correct every tiny little mistake and missed accent, the student will only remember the ‘sea of red ink’ and it will do very little to develop their acquisition. 

However, it is important not to forget the ‘outliers’; those students who, like us as their teachers, are linguists, grammatical nerds, who want to know every tiny error and why it is there. In my experience about 1 in every 20 students falls into this category. They are the ones who ‘ask’ about those sticky grammar points when you are mid-flow, sideways-laughing, at a funny part of a story. As you get to know them, you can and should correct all their errors but quietly explain to them that you are also a ‘grammar nerd’ and you knew they’d want to understand why the direct object pronoun is placed beside the indirect object pronoun. Then invite them to a ‘geek out’ at break time and go over it in detail. They will feel loved and fulfilled so now you can focus on the 99% who do not need or want that level of correction.

Ok so which errors should we correct?
​

In the pictures below is a student’s re-write of a story we were doing in class. This is a 13 year old student who has just started her second year of Spanish. The writing was done under exam conditions in class (ie. with no help from computers, dictionaries or teacher) in ten minutes. We had been co-creating the story together for about 5-6 lessons.
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As you can see, I choose not to correct all the errors. Instead, I focus on the errors that were vital to our story, or that were part of our ‘target structures’. For example “compró” (he/she bought) was an integral part of the story so I am correcting that. The difference between “quiero” (I want) and “quieres” (you want) has been a target structure in previous stories and at this stage, it is something I want students to be able to differentiate. However, in the first paragraph, I did not correct spelling errors like “una persona” or “difícil”. Why? Because they were not the focus of the story. From the research on intrinsic motivation, we know that students need to “feel” competent, that they can do it. If we correct every tiny error, the basic psychological need of ‘competence’ (from Self-Determination Theory) is dampened and the student feels like they ‘just can’t get it right no matter how hard they try’. I know it is challenging to let your red pen glide over an error which is glaring to you as the teacher but pick your battles! Does this error confuse the message? Was it a key focus in your lessons recently? If not, forget it. It will come later with more reading. 

So what about feedback? 

I like to use Geoff Petty’s ‘medals and missions’. It translates easily into Spanish and students immediately understand it. Pick 2-3 medals and 1-2 missions. Yes, you need ‘more’ medals than missions no matter how difficult this seems, you have to find them. However, and here is the kicker: in the ‘medals’ it is vital that you focus on the ‘process of language acquisition’ rather than the ‘quality’ itself. Praise the student with things like “I can clearly see you are reading at home” or “you are obviously listening intently in class”. That way, the student sees that they will be praised for going about the process in the correct way rather than just getting the answer right by whatever means. I only started doing this in the last year but I have seen huge differences once I reframed my feedback on the process and not product.

For the missions, I will usually give them a goal to improve the language like ‘use more description’ or ‘include connecting words to give your story more fluency’ rather than on the language itself. Sometimes, 1-2 short bullet points on a particular area of language is a good idea though. The students also use this ‘medals and missions’ way of giving feedback when doing peer assessment together in later tasks.

A further point that has really improved the way I give feedback is that I always try to read through the entire piece once before putting a single red mark on it. Yes, this is soooo difficult to do, it's like the red pen has a little red mind of its own at times! But if the piece is not too long, I try hard to do this. Then I ask myself: Ok, did I understand most of that? Were there lots of details from the story? Did it flow together? Has the student been listening to understand? It really focusses my mind on what is important and then allows me to pick out just 4-5 errors to concentrate on.

What happens next with the feedback?

For homework, students must write out their corrections. No ifs no buts. They write them always in the same place in their notebook so that all their corrections are together as they go through the year. We do this in a specific way:

  1. The student writes out the correct version of the sentence
  2. Next they use a different colour to underline or circle where the error used to be.

At the end they have a list of 4-5 sentences for each piece of written work that has a circle on the correct version, where they used to make mistakes. I always tell them this is the page to study or look over before any assessment. It is like having a teacher on your shoulder saying “psst.. remember, its quieres to say ‘you want’”. It means each student has a page of corrections that is specific and unique to them. I also encourage them to look over these corrections before they start their next written assignment. 

Let’s be honest, grading and marking is not why we got into this job. It’s never going to be ‘fun’ but at least with this method, it is time efficient and focussed on improvement. Most importantly, it maintains student motivation. It prevents them from feeling like a failure as they will never again receive a page of red pen that deflates and destroys all their hard work trying to get it right. Have a go and let me know what you think! Or if you have a better or more effective way of grading then please share… I’m all ears!
4 Comments

How to measure 'success' in the classroom? Stop laminating and start motivating.

7/1/2019

5 Comments

 
As a teacher, how do you measure ‘success’ in your classroom? Progress? Engagement? Learning? Unfortunately, the standard way to judge or quantify how successful you, your methods or your students are, is through ‘achievement outcomes’ or, more simply, ‘results’. Obviously, it is important that our students are learning, but I fear that the reason we have increasing numbers of students in the UK dropping languages is because we have slipped into a Machiavellian way of looking at language acquisition (and many other subjects) - as long as they are getting the results, then the methods don’t matter. The ‘ends justify the means’ per se.

Drill. Practise. Worksheet. Repeat.

The results will come and everyone is happy, right? The results often do come, at least for those willing to do the tedious practice and conjugation drills, but not everyone is happy. Perhaps the parents are happy when they see the ‘A’ on the results transcript, perhaps even the teacher is happy seeing those wonderful phrases we practised so many times reappear on the exam script, but no, not everyone is happy. The vast majority of students do not like rote learning, drills and practice. The research tells us students are ditching languages because, quite simply, they find it boring. In my own research, 11 years of collecting feedback forms at various stages in the year from students of all ages, backgrounds and contexts, I’m still at under 1% of responses listing grammar worksheets or practice drills as activities they felt helped their learning. They can serve a purpose when used very sparingly. However, in reality, far too many of us fall back on grammar exercises as our ‘go to – keep them quietly working’ activity when our students creativity and passion is dying a slow and painful death by powerpoint boredom.

The problem with focusing on achievement and results is that even when we appear to be ‘successful’, we still have far too many students (and parents) talking about hating French or ‘not being able to speak any Spanish’ even though they studied it for five years. Our subject is ‘language acquisition’ but what most students actually get is a linguistics class on the mechanics of language and grammar, sprinkled with some role-play and practice drills in case someone in the future should ask them any of the very precise questions in our textbooks. I remember going to Germany when I was 15 and had been learning German for three years… and to my shock and horror, even though I knew my lines, I had practised and drilled those role plays, the pesky Germans did not know theirs! Not one person asked me how to get to the post office or to list off all the items in my bedroom.
PictureChristmas card from an ex-student 2018
There seems to be a growing debate between language teachers and researchers about whether we should focus on ‘fluency’ versus ‘accuracy’ or on ‘meaning’ versus ‘form’. Personally, I am in the ‘meaning and fluency’ camp, with a strong belief that ‘accuracy and form’ come later. I am not saying we just ignore errors or never mention the G word (grammar), rather that we don’t make these the number one priority. The focus needs to move away from 'achievement outcomes' and towards 'engagement incomes'. Personally, and I have plenty of first-hand evidence to go along with the research on this, I think we need to ask ourselves the question:
 
Why teach with a focus on accuracy, form, grammar drills and practice when you get pretty much the same 'results', but with a huge increase in motivation, with a Comprehensible Input (CI) based approach?
 
I used to be a 'traditional' grammar, drill and practice language teacher for years. A pretty good one too. I was getting great 'results'. Most students liked my classes and were learning a lot. The 'academic' kids were excelling but others were simply not that interested no matter how hard I tried. I resigned myself to admitting "they just don't really like languages". Wrong. They just didn't find studying the mechanics of language as interesting as I did, like most other teenagers.
 
The switch to ‘Comprehensible Input’ teaching means I now reach all students. Even those who are not that 'into' languages, they still like Spanish and even after the timetable has forced them to drop it to pursue their love of Physics or Economics, they still come to me and speak Spanish, they still say they loved the class. This is what has changed. Grammar and drilling does 'work' for many kids, in terms of it helps them do very well on exams. But CI based classrooms grow a genuine love and interest for the language and the class and... here is the key, they also do really well on the exams.

PictureStudent 1 minute summary feedback 2018
My research focuses on the motivational side of language teaching and learning, and I do wonder why we continue to argue over which methods 'work' the best when we can't see the wood for the trees. We know that both 'methods' can deliver results but only one method is perceived as highly motivating and fun by almost ALL the students and not just some. The one that 'works' the best is not the one with fewer grammatical errors or longer error free iterations or even the one with greater fluency or accuracy. It is the one that keeps students coming back for more, the one that makes students want to go and look up a Spanish song at night, the one that makes them want to try that Spanish phrase with their Colombian piano teacher. When we focus on that part... the motivation part, the accuracy will follow, as you have peaked a desire in that student to go and find out for themselves why it is -o and not -a at the end of that word (if they really want to know!). If both methods get us the same results but one motivates much more than the other, one creates more smiles and laughs from both the teacher and the students, why are we even arguing about this?
 
I'm not making this up either… the limited research around the motivational pull of CI and TPRS storytelling teaching is very strong. The huge volumes of data we have relating to retention and engagement in traditional grammar, drills and practice classroom is also very strong, but strong in the other direction. Students are not motivated by it. Students end up dropping the language and becoming those adults who say "I did German for five years but I was so bad at it, I can't remember a word".
 
Those “I’m so bad at languages” comments that we hear from other adults when we mention our job, those comments are on us. It is not the students’ fault that they are not as enthused by nerdy grammar explanations that most of us, as language teachers and linguists, love. We have control over how we teach in our own classrooms, we can stop the rot and change the way languages are taught in schools.
 
First step: throw out the stack of grammar worksheets, forget all the drills and practice and just talk to the students. Tell them about yourself, your weekend, your fears and passions, tell them stories and ask them questions, real questions about their dreams and desires, do it all in a comprehensible manner focusing on the meaning and not the grammar, and you are on your way to a new vision of ‘real success’. One where you spend less time laminating, and more time motivating.
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‘Success’ is measured not by how many points a student scores on a test, or by how many grammatical errors there are. ‘Success’ is measured in smiles. This is real success. 

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Build relationships from the first day with the ‘class constitution’

16/8/2018

21 Comments

 
Classroom management is a recurring theme for most teachers. In the ‘comprehensible input’ classroom it takes on even greater significance as you are looking for intent listening, total engagement and 100% understanding from your learners. You plan compelling, interesting stories and activities, and this breathes life and even more energy into your teenage students. It can sometimes result in a fear of things getting out of control or too noisy which can in turn impact their acquisition. The ‘Class Constitution’ is a way to get immediate buy-in from your students on Day 1. By co-creating it together as a team you are building strong and meaningful relationships through mutual respect from the very first time you meet them.

​The three core tenets of quality classroom management are: Clear expectations, Consistent routines and Strong relationships. The ‘Class Constitution’ hits all of these. It usually takes a full double period (for me that is 80 minutes) to do it properly. Dedicating a full class to this may seem like a lot but it is the best time investment you will spend all year and will save you hours and hours in the long run whilst also keeping you as that happy, enthusiastic and motivated teacher you want to be all year. 
PictureBuilding relationships results in more eager and engaged students
Step-by-step guide to your ‘Class Constitution’:
As students arrive on the first day, greet them at the door with care and respect, looking them in the eye. As they take their seats I tell them they are all no longer in school but in the ‘Embajada de Españoland’ (Embassy of Españoland). I bring them to the door and show them my 'border' (black tape on the ground and something we use a lot later on when talking about migration) and ask them to explain what they know about ‘borders’ and ‘embassies’ to me. For my total beginner students I tell them that normally in Españoland we only speak Spanish but just for today we will be doing everything in English. Yes, I know this is valuable time when they could be getting more input but in my experience, showing the students that this is important enough for a full double lesson sets us up for the year and allows me to have much more time giving them Comprehensible Input throughout the year as they are totally bought-into the process. With all other year groups/levels we do it in Spanish but I allow responses and group talk in English that I will translate for them.

Step 1: What is a ‘safe’ learning environment?
In small groups of three or four, students firstly have some quiet thinking time and then they chat about what a 'safe classroom' means to them. On large sheets of paper, they start jotting down ideas. You can do this in whatever way works for you but I usually have one big A3 piece of paper on each table, for every group, and it is divided into three sections. Each group writes their ideas in one section of their paper with the heading “safe”.
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Step 2: Teacher led discussion
After 5 minutes (or less if you wish), I ask each group for some ideas or key words they wrote down. I jot these on the board, making sure to recognize any great words or concepts that come out. Obviously though, you, as the teacher, are a skilled practitioner and professional, so you keep probing for answers until they come up with what you really want to hear. Students will quickly realise that while silly or immature words are listened to but not accepted, the teacher gets very enthusiastic and excited about concepts like ‘respect, listening, we love mistakes’ etc.
PictureHaving fun as part of our constitution equals more engagement
​Step 3: What is a 'fun' learning environment?
The above two steps are now copied in the same way but changing the focus to ‘fun’. I usually have each group move to a different table so they can see the words and answers that other groups wrote down. They can add some words if they wish. In the discussion part for this question you will see the enormous impact of the tone you set and the way you looked in their eyes and smiled when they gave you a great word in the first discussion. You will start getting really great stuff here right from the outset. Again, use your skills to facilitate a discussion until those key concepts start to surface.
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Step 4: What does it mean to be 'linguist'?
The final section of their paper is about being a linguist. I introduced this last September and it worked wonders as a classroom management piece throughout the year. They follow the same procedure as before but you may need to explain what a ‘linguist’ is. I tell them that by being citizens of Españoland they are all now part of a very elite and special group, they are no longer mere students or learners but linguists. Just watch their faces light up as you call them ‘linguists’. When we get to the group discussion part, I explain that we as linguists, are different, we do not act like everyone else. What do we do that is different? After some probing, they will come out with things like “we respect other cultures, we listen to other languages, we read and inquire into cultural differences, we love speaking languages, we love listening to others talk in a different language” etc. This simple element of naming them for the whole year as linguists has a profound impact on behaviour, attitude and confidence. 

PictureRespect for the constitution allows for effective group activities
​Step 5: Pulling it all together
Once we have all our key ideas on the board under our three headings, I ask them what they notice. Someone will point out the word ‘respect’ has magically appeared in all three areas so this must be the centre and core of our constitution. We then circle and highlight other ‘big ideas’ or key concepts together. Finally, I ask them if it would be ok if I could represent them and pool all of this together into our very own constitution. I also ask them, “if we have an embassy based on these ideas do you think it will be a good year in Españoland?”, they inevitably will answer yes. I also explicitly point out and say that they did not walk in here and get handed a list of ‘my’ rules of the class. Instead, they wrote their own constitution, they came up with the key values and concepts of being a citizen of Españoland themselves.

Step 6: The next class
I start the next class by showing them their constitution… it is no surprise that all my classes have a constitution that is almost identical. I ask them if I have represented their ideas adequately and if they are happy that this be our ‘guiding document and principles’ for life in Españoland. There is also great cross-curricular learning here with Humanities; I often have the younger students speak to their humanities teacher about our constitution and allow them to show off that they know what it is and why it is important to countries and citizens to have one.

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Final version of our Class Constitution 2017
​Throughout the year:
The constitution remains on our ‘embassy’ wall for the year. If there are any lapses in behavior or standards that we all expect from each other, I simply bring the student(s) in question to the constitution and point to the requisite section and smile. This usually does the trick but sometimes I might have to remind the entire class of our underlying constitutional values that they themselves designed and wrote. These lapses in standards are actually incredibly rare. In general, co-creating the shared ideals together results in a respectful classroom where everyone feels safe, where we have fun, where we act like the linguists we are and where we thrive upon our favourite mistakes as unique learning opportunities. I always remind students that “as linguists, we are special, we are unique, we listen intently to understand and therefore learn”. Simply changing the discourse and calling them linguists possesses some magical power to keep everyone engaged, enthused and eager to represent themselves as the linguist they are.
Planning to motivate not to laminate:
As my regular blog followers will already know, the thesis for my Doctor of Education studies is focused on strategies that motivate both the teacher and student in the language classroom. Specifically, I am looking at Ryan and Deci’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory relating to intrinsic motivation. It posits that when activities meet the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence, this results in intrinsic motivation; where we engage in something out of pure joy and interest rather than external forces acting upon us. This forms the backbone of all my classroom planning as, in my opinion, motivated students who like the class and want to be there, who want to listen and learn, make for great language learners. The ‘Class Constitution’ meets all of the three psychological needs of Self-Determination Theory:
  • Autonomy: Students are co-creating this constitution themselves with the teacher; they have control, choice and ownership over what to suggest and what is ultimately included.
  • Relatedness: Through building the ‘Class Constitution’ together in groups and then with me as the teacher, they are fostering strong bonds and relationships both to each other, to the teacher and to 'Españoland' itself.
  • Competence: When the teacher acknowledges the students' ideas and then accepts their concepts as important enough to go into the constitution, the students feel ‘able’ for what is being asked, they feel competent.
21 Comments

Are there 'quick fixes' to increase student motivation?

29/4/2018

4 Comments

 
So that I’m not accused of sitting on the fence… for me, motivation is the holy grail in education. It is the key to not only our students’ success but also to our own satisfaction as teachers. In this presentation at a recent all-staff meeting at The International School of Lausanne, I started by asking teachers to share ‘things that frustrate them’ about their students. Asking a question like this right at the end of a semester, with many tired faces in the audience, certainly didn’t take long to generate a rich variety of responses; not handing in work on time, arriving late and unprepared, not participating in class, constant low level chatter, using phones in class… I am sure most of us can relate to many of these issues that are common place in schools the world over.  Next, I asked for the opposite; times when you felt you really loved your job, when everything was going well in the classroom. Thankfully, this also did not take long to produce a variance of answers; students all contributing, insightful questions, assignments that ‘wowed’ the teacher, students really enjoying their learning. I would argue that the bridge that fills the gap between these two phenomena is “motivation”.
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When our students are motivated, they participate, they arrive on time, they hand in quality work, they ask great questions and produce thought-provoking, insightful, knowledgeable answers, they smile, they laugh, they want to improve, they want to learn.

What does this do to us as teachers? Quite simply, it makes us feel great. We feel good at our jobs, we feel like our kids are progressing, we feel like we chose the right career, we feel like we are making a difference, we feel motivated.

But how do we achieve motivated learners in our classes? Are there any ‘quick fixes’ for motivation we can apply straight away? Thank you to @MathsTweetcher for this question and the inspiration behind this blog.

PictureBondie & Zusho 2018
The good news is that yes, there are things we can all do, with very little time and effort, to increase motivation right away amongst our learners. According to Ryan and Deci’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory (SDT), intrinsic motivation (which involves engaging in tasks out of pure joy and interest) is increased when we meet the basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence. SDT, which originated in psychology, has already been extensively researched and tested across a variety of domains including medicine, coaching and education, and is widely considered and accepted as a robust method to augment motivation. Autonomy is related to choice, self-direction, and student ownership of learning; relatedness refers to a sense of belonging, support, inclusion and relationships while competence is concerned with students’ perceptions about their capacity to achieve success.

This 2006 study, for example, looked at the motivational pull of videogames and found that playing videogames clearly met the 3 needs of SDT and henceforth, why so many people are so motivated to keep playing them. Players have complete autonomy in where and what they do in any given game; there is a strong sense of relatedness as gamers have an immediate connection to a community where they can share their passion; and gamers feel a great element of competence while playing as they pass from one level to the next.

As part of my Doctorate in Education at the University of Bath, I also put SDT to the test in my own context, engaging in this qualitative research study with a group of Year 10 students (aged 15-16) about their experiences of learning languages through storytelling. Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) is a method of language teaching that, I found, consistently generated lots of positive responses on feedback forms and seemed to really engage the kids. In the study, according to the students themselves, TPRS visibly met the SDT needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence and this in turn meant it was a highly motivating approach to language learning. They reported believing they could “steer the learning” and “effect what would happen next” which led them to feel “more involved and more in control” of their learning (Autonomy). In addition, they felt the stories “helped them to understand everything better” and “really improved their speaking” (Competence). Finally, they reported that stories were “very extroverted” meaning “everybody will feel included” and “everybody gets to participate”, which made them “less scary” as “you don’t get judged” because “everyone was doing it as a group” (Relatedness).
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​Building self-determined, motivated learners does indeed take time but by applying SDT’s 3 needs to our lesson plans immediately, this can give us some ‘quick fixes’ to motivation as Jason asked about. Take a look at your upcoming lesson plans and ask yourself if you think the activities meet the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Simply thinking about these needs as we plan can lead to more motivated behaviours:

Autonomy: Can I adapt the activity to allow students more choice or self-direction? You can still set the task but by allowing them different ways to show their learning and fulfil the objectives, you are heightening their level of autonomy and creativity, and you are on your way to a more motivated class.
Relatedness: Can I re-plan this so students have a greater sense of belonging and togetherness? Perhaps students can attempt a task in pairs rather than individually? Can students or (you as the teacher) share a personal anecdote connected to the lesson? Maybe there is an opportunity for you as their teacher to ‘get among them’ and do the task with them? All this improves relationships and leads towards more ‘relatedness’ in the class.
Competence: Is the activity going to help students feel like they can ‘do’ it? Is there a way to modify the activity so students can show off what they’ve just learned to each other? Another very simple way to augment students’ feelings of competence is just to recognize, highlight and share something good you see in the class, something that demonstrates understanding of the concepts. By explicitly highlighting successes and learning, students feel like they ‘are getting it’, they feel more competent.
​
Yes, building self-determined, highly motivated learners, can be a challenge but by making small adjustments to our lesson planning using SDT and creating an ‘ARC’ (Autonomy, Relatedness, Competence) in our classes we can at least help students to enjoy and engage in the lesson more, even if the content or subject matter is not of particular interest to them. If we want engaged, smiling, inquiring students who are achieving their potential and learning, its time we concentrated more on ‘motivating’ and less on ‘laminating’.  

​Please share your comments and whether you have any activities you feel already have students on an upwards ‘ARC’ towards motivation. 

4 Comments

"Why is everyone getting an 'A'? This can't be right..."

25/3/2018

1 Comment

 
This was the general gist of a recent sit down I had with a school administrator when my grade distribution for the first semester looked very different from most other teachers. In my current school we use the International Baccalaureate (IB) grading levels, going from 7 as the highest grade to 1 at the lowest end. The administration noticed that my 'graph', as well as a few other teachers, looked quite different from 'the norm'. The vast majority of my 75-80 students were achieving a 6 or 7 with only a small number in the middle with a 3, 4 or 5 and no-one underneath that. To be fair to my school, the administration was not 'giving out' to me but rather they wanted to check in and understand why this was the case and find out whether my students were being adequately challenged. 
PictureReading and acquiring in the deskless class
I had never really looked or thought about my 'graphical distribution' of grades before. If the students achieve what is set out against the IB grading criteria, they then merit the high grades right?... but his question about 'are they all being adequately challenged' did make me stop and think. I went back and looked through some of the assessments I had set (presentations, story retells, writing out a story, reading comprehensions etc) and for each level I really do think these are challenging assignments. The "problem" (if that's what we can call it) is that the students are almost all really highly motivated, are engaged for 95-100% of the class time, only speak and listen to Spanish during every minute of every class and are all in a comprehensible input environment where we always seek 100% comprehension from each and every student before moving on.

I don't think it is 'me' in particular, but rather the comprehensible input methods I teach, which they have grown to love and cherish: storytelling, acting out parts of the book, movietalks, special person interviews etc. Is it so bad or so wrong that they are acquiring so much language so quickly that they are almost all acing every assessment they get? Is it not our goal to try and have highly motivated students as we know that will lead to achievement of their potential? Is it really my job to now go and set harder tests and evaluations so they don't all do so well, thus putting a lower number on some kids heads and demotivating them after all we have done to get this far together? I really hope not.

PictureUp and moving = increased engagement
However, it does beg the question about maintaining sufficient challenge for each and every student. Of course, like in any class in the world, some students are faster processors than others, some need more repetitions of the structures and some don't. But I firmly believe in the Comprehensible Input mantra of 100% comprehension from all. Does this mean some students are bored? They never look bored. They never say they are bored in any feedback surveys. Quite the contrary in fact. So what is the problem if we are all learning, and learning so fast? What is the problem if they are all acquiring so much language that they ace all the assessments?

​There is a cultural aspect to this too let's not forget. An 80% test score in an American school can mean a very different achievement level to an 80% score in a French or British school. The research is quite clear though, putting numbers on students heads, particularly low ones, demotivates much more than it motivates to improve. So why do we keep doing it? Why not just do away with grades altogether and just have comment only feedback for the first few years of secondary school (say up to age 15 or something). Is that really so radical? 

As other language teachers around the world, I really would love to hear your comments on this. How do you maintain motivation whilst still having sufficient challenge for the high achievers? Do your comprehensible input methods also result in a 'skewed grade distribution' and if so... does that not just mean that what we are doing is actually working?

And most importantly, should we not be celebrating the 'skewed' graph rather than trying to reset it?
1 Comment

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    Dr. Liam Printer:
    Host of The Motivated Classroom podcast, keynote speaker, presenter, lecturer, language teacher, teacher trainer, educational consultant, published author and basketball coach. 14 years teaching experience in a variety of educational settings. Currently I am the Teaching & Learning Research Lead and Approaches to Learning Coordinator at the International School of Lausanne in Switzerland where I also teach language acquisition.

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