Motivation and Good Language Learners

Motivation as internal drive pushes someone to achieve the goal. Goal and ego are two important variables in it. Also, it can be used to measure how good the students are since the good ones have good motivation. Also, finding the entry as connection or bridge to social network and making choices and decision of learning, goal setting, and responsibility.

Intrinsic motivation deals with the feeling of pleasure and comfort, interest, challenge, skill, satisfaction, self-desire, and self-development. Menawhile, extrinsic motivation is composed of the activity in the environment. Deciding which motivation works best is not easy. Some experts say that intrinsic works better while other decide the extrinsic. It should be correlated with the condition and the necessity.

Some ways can be done by the teacher to engage the students’ motivation. The first is to teach writing as a thinking process. The second is showing the leaners’ reading strategies. Many reasearches show that reading is the most difficult and crucial skill to master. Some students often misundertand the meaning of the text. Also, they may understand the meaning correctly with low speed. Thus, it is important for the teachers to teach them the strategic in order to facilitate the learning process. Experience takes a great portion in helping them. If they already experienced the events, they will easily comprehend the meaning. Exercising the oral fluency is a way to rehearse the productive skill. Speaking is the earlier skill used in communication than writing. Therefore, the learners must be habitualized in using it.

Commonly Found Questions

The questions are the way to analyze or measure the motivation and how to utilize them. From the discussion, to analyze the motivation can be known through the exam and the test where the students get good scores. Self-diagnosis and peer evaluation is the following stage to obtain information from. The last one is by knowing themselves whether they are motivated or not. It deals with the intrinsic motivation. Also, there will be the result of motivation; knowledge and experience. The information of the students’ information can be used to keep the motivation balance and for those who are less motivated, the teacher can analyze the factors influencing it and solve it. Also, the solution may come from the other students such as pairing the motivates and less-motivated. They are suggested to motivate each other unconsciously.

Critical Analysis

Responding to the first question about the way to analyze motivation, actually we cannot measure invisible things. Motivation is categorized as an abstract variable. However, to obtain information about the students’ motivation, we can observe them. Well-motivated students will differ from the unmotivated ones even if it deals with the intrinsic and extrinsic ones. The motivated students show the desire to reach the goal, for example, they come to school to get knowledge so they will participate and be active in the classroom. On the other hand, the less-motivated ones will not take much participation during the learning activity. Also, I agree that intrinsic motivation is more powerful than the extrinsic. When students have intrinsic motivation, they will keep trying to get what they want. However, it does not mean that extrinsic motivation does not take part. Family and society also influence. Mostly, some cases in Indonesia which deal with achieving the goal are blocked by the extrinsic factors, for example, a student who wants to be a teacher is forced to be a lawyer by her parents. In this case, the ambiguity rises whether the extrinsic factor is a motivation or an obstacle. However, we should be able to distinguish them. The word motivation comes from movere which means to move, to energize, and to be active. That term means positively. Therefore, the case above is not motivation. Motivation deals with the environment which support a person achieving the goal. If it obstructs the goal, it is not motivation yet obstacle.

References

Griffith, Carol. 2008.  Lessons from Good Language Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

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