Contemporary issues of science and education (Современные проблемы науки и образования). Учебное пособие
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Topic 9. Strategies to Increase Motivation in Language Learners
Topic 10
ENHANCING STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION
IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Personalise learning and give students agency
When students are offered choice and flexibility in their learning, they are more clearly able to see and feel that it has been tailored and personalised to their individual learning styles. Students then feel that they have licence to say what they want to say and how they want to say it. Educators who offer this flexibility motivate learners to make more than expected progress.
Keep everything relevant and usable in real life
Whatever their core motivation for learning a language, all students want to feel that the learning activities they undertake are interesting, meaningful and relevant. It is important that they are learning skills that are designed to be used and that they are not just learning for learning’s sake.
Language educators who focus their efforts on teaching students the skills to communicate with native speakers of their target language in real-world situations are therefore powerfully able to motivate learners to progress. Particularly when they also deploy realia and other authentic content (magazines, social media posts and film / TV content) so that students can immediately see the applicability of their learning in the real world.
Give always feedback
Most language learners want to succeed, so the careful use of praise and positive feedback can be powerful motivators to encourage their continued progress. Students can find it difficult to see the progress that they’re making or where they need extra support / work. So there’s an important role for language educators to play in providing that guide – marking assignments and detailing where improvement can be made is clearly a key part of this work.
Students who feel a sense of achievement will inevitably feel more self-con- fident, better able to lead their own learning and more motivated to succeed. Of course, it’s a fine balance to ensure that your feedback doesn’t slip into constant criticism of students who make mistakes. Students should feel that these are all
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Topic 10. Enhancing Students’ Motivation in Foreign Language Learning
part of the learning process and should be encouraged to take risks and stretch themselves beyond their current learning level.
Use educational technology to engage students
The way in which language educators can motivate students is by using engaging educational technology in their teaching.
Sanako’s market-leading language teaching and learning tools for schools and universities include a wealth of unique features that help language educators to motivate students to keep learning. It’s why the world’s leading educational institutions choose Sanako as their preferred supplier to support online and inclassroom lesson delivery.
Sanako Connect platform enables language educators to:
−Offer a wide range of opportunities to practice core language skills. In fact, Sanako Connect has been specifically designed to increase the time each student spends speaking and actively practicing conversations during classes whether you teach in the classroom or remotely.
−Create lessons that grab their attention, are creative and which make use of a wide variety of different stimulus materials. Connect makes it easy for teachers to upload a wide variety of learning material for students to use. Any number of interactive content, PDFs, presentations, YouTube videos and web pages can, for example, be easily attached to an online lesson plan and shared with students.
−Make lessons easy to access and resources easy to find. With Connect, students can flexibly participate in lessons from anywhere with an Internet connection and can conveniently access all of the language lesson resources within a single application.
−Help demonstrate the progress students are making and simply provide feedback on areas for future development. This can be easily shared with students via Sanako Connect’s feedback functionality, which allows educators to add time-coded feedback for student’s speech and pronunciation recordings.
−Tailor their teaching to every student’s needs. Connect helps language educators to identify student engagement with each lesson and each sub part. Connect notifies the teacher when, for example, students recorded their speaking practice or whether they opened the translation exercise. Teachers can clearly identify progress (or the lack of) and address areas for improvement with targeted lessons and resources [7].
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Topic 10. Enhancing Students’ Motivation in Foreign Language Learning
Tasks
Task 1. Review the information in the text. Please explain the meaning of the following terms: individual learning styles, learning activities, target language, authentic content, positive feedback, educational technology.
Task 2. Read the article again and complete the sentences with information from the text.
1.Сhoice and flexibility help students find _________________________.
2.It is important that learning skills that are designed are used in ________.
3.Communication with native speakers is powerfully able to ___________.
4.Authentic materials in the study of foreign languages include _________.
5.The use of positive feedback can be _____________________________.
6.If the foreign language teacher regularly tells students about their achievements, then this will contribute to _____________________________________.
7.There must be a reasonable balance to ensure that feedback does not go into ____________________________________________________________.
8.Students should understand that feedback is only ___________________.
9.Sanako foreign language teaching tools for schools and universities include ___________________________________________________________.
10.Sanako Connect has been specially designed to increase the time
_______________________________________________________________.
11.Connect allows teachers to easily download any amount of interactive content, such as ___________________________________________________.
12.With Connect, students can conveniently access ___________________.
Task 3. Answer the questions about the content of the article.
1.Why do students need to be offered choice and flexibility in learning?
2.Why should students’ learning activities be interesting, meaningful and relevant?
3.Why is it necessary to apply an authentic context in teaching foreign languages?
4.Why should teachers constantly tell students about their success in learning foreign languages?
5.Why do students need to constantly experience the sense of success?
6.Why should teachers always encourage students to take risks?
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Topic 10. Enhancing Students’ Motivation in Foreign Language Learning
7.Why do the best educational institutions in the world choose Sanako to teach foreign languages?
8.What feedback feature does Sanako have?
9.How can foreign language teachers determine the degree of students’ involvement in the educational process on the Sanako learning platform?
10.How can teachers see students’ progress or its lack on the Sanako learning platform?
Task 4. Express your point of view on the following issue: What opportunities does the educational technology Sanako Connect have?
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Topic 10. Enhancing Students’ Motivation in Foreign Language Learning
Topic 11
COLLABORATION CULTURE
IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
As language teaching moves away from the traditional teacher-centred lecture format, it’s vital that students are given an opportunity to develop more collaborative skills.
Not only does this better prepare them for the modern inclusive classroom environment, but collaborative language learning has also been proven to have a highly beneficial impact on learning outcomes. After all, one of the main aims of communicative language teaching is to develop the learner’s skills so that they might become better participants in conversation. And as Hedge’s 2000 research points out this can certainly occur in collaborative learning settings.
This article looks at the benefits that collaborative language teaching approaches can bring to your classroom and outlines how they can be effectively and efficiently delivered.
What is collaborative learning in the context of language education? Collaborative learning occurs when a group of two or more students work
together to achieve a shared goal or learning objective.
Students interact and share their knowledge to complete a task, discuss concepts or to find a solution to a problem their language teacher has posed. As they collaborate students learn together, addressing each other’s misunderstandings, clarifying misconceptions and correcting mistakes. Students in the group might be working on separate tasks contributing to a common goal, or working together on a single shared task.
In either case, collaborative learning activities should always focus on learning by doing. This is vital when learning a new language as building fluency only comes with increased use and confidence. Indeed, collaboration activities can provide unique and rich opportunities for language learning and oral language practice (Kagan 1995).
To summarise: To be a successful language user, it is not enough to know; students have to adapt their knowledge to create meaning and communicate with someone else.
Why use collaborative learning exercises in the language classroom?
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Topic 11. Collaboration Culture in the Language Classroom
There are many benefits for including collaborative learning in your language lessons. But perhaps most importantly, they are great for second language learners because they prioritise conversation and focus on developing listening and speaking skills. Additionally, the language is, in these scenarios, used for a meaningful purpose rather than just for an academic exercise. This maps directly to Swain and Lapkin’s recommendations for language learners that were first published in 1995.
In addition, collaborative exercises make students rely on each other to build knowledge and in so doing, make the learning process more meaningful and interesting. Students also feel part of a community of learning, where everyone is working towards the same goals and supports each other to succeed. As a result, students feel more in control of their learning journeys and are more confident and motivated to continue learning.
This experience is heightened when students of different academic levels are brought together in a group. Students are now not only responsible for their own learning but are also responsible for supporting and developing their peers. In this way, students can be inspired to achieve by using the example of their friends and peers.
Collaborative learning also enables students to:
−Develop higher level thinking, oral communication, self-management, leadership and social skills.
−Flourish in an inclusive classroom environment.
−Build self-esteem and personal responsibility.
−Be exposed to and increase their understanding of diverse perspectives [3].
Tasks
Task 1. Review the information in the text. Please explain the meaning of the following terms: teacher-centred lecture format, collaborative skills, shared goal, community of learning, inclusive classroom environment, work environment.
Task 2. Read the article again and complete the sentences with information from the text.
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Topic 11. Collaboration Culture in the Language Classroom
1.It has been proven that collaborative language learning has a huge impact on _____________________________________________________________.
2.One of the main goals of communicative language learning is _________.
3.The goals of teaching the communicative language can be achieved
_________.
4.Collaborative learning occurs when _____________________________.
5.In the process of working together, students eliminate _______________, clarify ________________ and correct ________________________________.
6.Students in the group might be working on ______________contributing to a common goal, or working together on ____________________________.
7.According to Kagan (1995), collaboration activities can provide unique and rich opportunities for ___________________________________________.
8.In order to successfully master the language, students must adapt their knowledge to ____________________________________________________.
9.In collaborative learning scenarios, language is used for _____________, not just for academic _______________________________________________.
10.Collaborative exercises make students ___________________________.
11.When performing collaborative tasks, students feel like they are a part of
_______________________________________________________________.
12.In multi-level groups, the example of their friends and peers can inspire students to _______________________________________________________.
Task 3. Answer the questions about the content of the article.
1.Why does learning the foreign language together have a beneficial effect on learning outcomes?
2.What is the purpose of communicative teaching of foreign languages?
3.What does the Hedge study conducted in 2000 show?
4.How does foreign language learning take place in a group?
5.What is the difference between individual tasks and a single common task?
6.What recommendations did Swain and Lapkin give to foreign language learners in the group?
7.Why do students feel more confident in the process of learning foreign languages together?
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Topic 11. Collaboration Culture in the Language Classroom
8.What are the advantages of learning the foreign language in the multilevel group?
9.What opportunities does collaborative education in foreign languages provide to students?
10.What does successful mastery of a foreign language mean?
Task 4. Express your point of view on the following issue: What are the advantages of group learning of foreign languages?
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Topic 12. Collaborative Learning in the Context of Language Education
Topic 12
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
IN THE CONTEXT OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Embedding collaborative learning in the classroom
At the beginning of a collaborative learning activity, the classroom and instruction from the teacher will probably look pretty familiar – the teacher stands at the front of the class and talks whilst the students listen. Yet this presentation phase is vital to set the scene and to introduce the task. This could be as simple as getting students to work with a partner and debate a topic in their target language.
Subsequently, students should then be given sufficient time to fully engage with and participate in the task. The initial focus is usually on accurate use of the language, as the teacher moves from group to group, assessing progress, answering questions and providing encouragement. Where good progress is being made, students can be challenged to go further, combining what they have just learned with what they already know.
At the end of each activity (or group of activities), it is advisable to have a quick debrief to review progress. Select a handful of students to share a summary of their activity with the class. Use other students / groups to address any errors or misconceptions and then give all students the opportunity to ask questions and clarify their understanding.
For larger project-based activities, it may be necessary to give students time to establish a plan, roles and rules for working together. Introductory ice-breakers and team-building exercises might also be useful to foster cohesion if students are going to be working together for an extended period.
The following points are also well worth by using a collaborative approach in the classroom:
1.Students will need encouragement, support and practice to make collaborative learning effective.
2.There’s a vital role for teachers to play in designing the activities. They need to be planned and thought through just like any other lesson.
3.Careful thought is required to ensure that the groups enhance rather than damage classroom dynamics. This should include mixing up friendship groups
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Topic 12. Collaborative Learning in the Context of Language Education
and ability levels. Similarly make sure that quieter and lower ability students get the opportunity to fully contribute and participate throughout.
4. Intently consider how to incorporate competitive elements. These can be motivational but should impact the students’ learning.
Is it possible to deliver collaborative learning remotely?
Although more usually associated (for obvious reasons) with in-person teaching, collaborative learning can also be effectively delivered online. Sanako produces a range of language teaching tools that help educators to create and deliver engaging and effective collaborative learning activities. The browser-based language teaching solution Sanako Connect specifically supports educators to:
1.Easily create bespoke, interactive language learning resources to introduce group-based activities in Sanako Connect by using a wide variety of stimulus materials including text files, PDFs, video, audio clips, presentations and web pages.
2.Divide students into pairs or group discussions and assign them live online role play and discussion activities. Outputs and deliverables can also be collected and reviewed on the same web-based platform.
3.Make lesson resources easy to find and to access synchronously and asynchronously. In Connect, students can flexibly participate in lessons from anywhere with an Internet connection and can conveniently access all of the language lesson resources within a single application.
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