Motivating the Students by Jo Budden

This article has several suggestions for improving student motivation in the classroom. Because it is written by a European author, it discusses teaching English to students that are EFL classified. While my students are American, I can relate their learning to EFL students because many of them are bilingual with English as a Second Language. Being one who has studied (unfortunately, not mastered) many languages, I can understand how learning a new language could present certain struggles and frustrations that people born and immersed in the language do not face. On the topic of motivation, I have personally experienced a lack of motivation to continue learning other languages. I reflect on this because if my students ever acted upon their desires to rid themselves of the frustration and stagnancy of learning English, I would have seen many future drop-outs in my classes. I applaud my students for their efforts because I believe that there is nothing worse than doing your best and not seeing any benefit to the work.
The article makes an excellent point, “Adults are usually in your classroom because they have made a choice to be there and in most cases, a financial commitment towards their learning. However, children and teenagers often haven’t made their own decision to attend the English class and they are obliged by either parents or the school to do so.”

Some of the strategies mentioned to increase motivation were:

-star charts and effort charts
-setting goals
-progress markers
-questionnaires
-feedback sheets
-personalization
-bringing in outside resources
-reminding students of the value of learning

I was thinking of star charts and effort charts, but sometimes I wonder if that would be considered an extrinsic motivator, with a reward for the highest achiever. For the purpose of my study, I have decided to glean the use of questionnaires, feedback sheets, bringing in outside resources and imparting the value of learning on to my students. I believe that we already set goals in the classroom, each student knows that the goal is to achieve the highest - but do they know what they have to do in order to reach that goal? Probably not, even though I tell them every day. What can I do differently to get the students to comprehend what I am telling them?