What is motivation?

Motivation is a complex concept that covers a variety of meanings. If I describe my students as motivated, you’ll imagine they’re interested in my subject, enthusiastic, committed, persistent, and making efforts to learn.

So, motivation encompasses feelings and behaviours.

Unmotivated students don’t show those attributes. To deal with these students, we often ignore why they’re reluctant or passive to be involved in their learning.

Understanding the ‘why’ can help us figure out the problem. Because motivation is not just about feelings and behaviours, but also why individuals think they should behave in that way. Motives or what one wants/desires are what stimulate our thoughts, feelings, and our behaviours.

So, motivation is all about how our mental processes are transformed into actions. As Dörnyei (2013) explains, people’s decision to undertake a given action is determined first by their beliefs about the values of the action, and then by their evaluation of whether they are up to the challenge and whether the support they are likely to get from others is sufficient.

To this end, motivating students requires certain basic conditions.

Motivational conditions

Two basic conditions are indispensable for motivating students.

1. Positive teacher attitudes

Teachers send both verbal and non-verbal messages to students, reflecting their attitudes. Indeed, research has revealed that the teacher’s behaviour is the most important motivational tool.

Therefore, before you decide on any motivational strategies and start employing them, think about your behaviours in the classroom and how you should gear them to induce positive effects on your students.

Here is how:

# Be enthusiastic

Learning is an emotional experience. You’re not just generating certain feelings when interacting with your students, but your emotions are also contagious.

You can’t make your students interested in your teaching if you’re not passionate enough about it.

It’s your enthusiasm that fuels your passion and commitment towards the subject matter and teaching. This enthusiasm is infectious, instilling in students a willingness to pursue knowledge.

So, make your enthusiasm public; it’s one of the most important ingredients of motivationally successful teaching.

How?

Being enthusiastic does not mean expressing personal feelings or doing excessive talking in the classroom. It is rather showing your interest in what you’re doing and sharing with students the reasons for such interest and how it affects your personality.

When you’re enthusiastic your interest is translated into actions. You’re concerned with supporting your students to learn your subject. You listen to and observe them, identify the learning gaps, and bring the necessary resources to meet their learning needs.

It’s your enthusiasm that empowers you, even when you feel exhausted or stressed out.

Hence, teaching is a very demanding job. Your enthusiasm and energy may wane over time. Therefore, it’s necessary to keep self-caring to re-energize and feel good about yourself.

# Care about your students

Caring about your students is key to building good relationships with them, not just on an academic level but also on a personal one. Because what your students will remember most isn’t what and how you taught them, but how you treated them and the kind of learning experience you evoked.

So, it’s the kind of personal interactions with students and ties you build with them that contribute to their motivation.

Professionalism is indeed the basis for building trust with students. Yet, knowing the what and how of teaching is important, but it’s not everything!

A study found that attitudes such as being non-judgemental, empathetic, and validating others improved students’ perception of teachers’ credibility (Varagona & Hold, 2018). Teachers’ credibility and students’ motivation have a strong positive correlation with each other (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009).

So, your students will get more motivated to learn if you care about them and support them to learn better. Even if you’re new to teaching, you have not learned much from your experience, or when your energy drains, your students are still motivated because they get more interested in you as a PERSON than as a teacher.

2. A positive classroom climate

According to motivation researchers, the importance of the classroom climate as a motivational tool is the second motivational dimension after teachers’ attitudes.

But, what kind of classroom climate would help in motivating students?

We need to create a positive classroom climate that is supportive and pleasant.

Here are some tips to make your classroom climate/atmosphere/environment both supportive and pleasant.

#Supportive

We already discussed the importance of teacher attitudes and caring about students to build a good rapport with them. These are necessary to create a supportive learning atmosphere because teacher-student relationships are one component of it.

To get that support, students also need to feel comfortable taking risks.

This means besides respecting students, caring about them, and being available for help, we need to make them feel safe to protect their self-esteem and increase their self-confidence.

However, students’ relationships with each other also matter to create a supportive learning environment. Students need to support each other: collaborate, and share their learning without feeling embarrassed or fear of getting criticised by their peers.

We should, therefore, build a positive classroom community. This is by making mistakes part of the classroom culture, promoting cooperation, and establishing behaviour norms that instil tolerance and respect among our students.

Another important feature of a supportive classroom atmosphere is quietness. Students can’t listen, concentrate, and learn in noisy classes. Learning gets tough in this case and students are likely to get demotivated.

So, a supportive learning environment is achieved when teachers manage effectively their classes: minimizing all kinds of distractions and disturbances during their lessons.

Besides, not only is the psychosocial aspect important in creating a supportive classroom atmosphere but the physical environment’s role can’t be negated.

A lack of learning resources, including equipment and sufficient time for students to practise what they’ve learned, can increase students’ anxiety levels and reduce their motivation (Tharani, Husain, & Warwick, 2017).

So, motivating students is not the sole responsibility of the teacher, but schools/institutions/colleges should also provide the necessary facilities and support to induce and maintain such a driving force in individuals.

# Pleasant

We tend to take ourselves too seriously. But, we shouldn’t do so all the time.

When my students get tired, not attentive, and bored, I use jokes to help them relax. And do you know what? This makes a huge difference to their attention and learning motivation.

Using humour is so powerful. It doesn’t take time. Just in a few minutes, you can tell your students a funny anecdote about your teaching or personal experience or play humorous games to make them laugh without being ridiculous.

Humour is a must in teaching to create a relaxing learning atmosphere where students don’t feel tense but have some fun and enjoy learning.

Students will also enjoy learning in your classes if you encourage them to ‘take over’ some control, for instance, decorating the classroom walls, making some choices over their learning, sharing their suggestions and ideas, and getting more creative.

In the same concern, engaging students in group work and holding them accountable for achieving group goals can make the learning process enjoyable.

Showing positive teaching attitudes and creating a positive classroom climate are the 2 essential conditions for motivating students. Motivation has a very important role in determining success or failure in any learning context. So, creating these conditions is worth the effort.

References
Bolkan S, & Goodboy A.K. (2009) Transformational leadership in the classroom: fostering student learning, student participation, and teacher credibility. Psychol 36(4):296-306.

Dörnyei, Z.(2013). Motivational Strategies in The Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tharani, A, Husain, Y, & Warwick, I. (2017). Learning environment and emotional wellbeing: a qualitative study of undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Educ Today. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2017.09.008.

Varagona, L.M, & Hold, J.L. (2018). Nursing students’ perceptions of faculty trustworthiness: thematic analysis of a longitudinal study. Nurse Educ Today https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.