An A Margarita

TITLE: Motivation and individual differences. AUTHORS: Lic. Ana Margarita Fuertes Elizarde Lic. María Elena González Chamorro

OBJECTIVES:To give a general account of motivation as a Psychological category. To establish the relation between motivation and Individual differences.

INTRODUCTION The study of this aspect has always been related to Psychology, although recently and due to the development of Methodology it has become an important part of Pedagogy. Most of the information found regarding this topic is rather complex since the motivating contents turned out to be the factors that make up the personality, so motives, their organization and structure become essential bases of the personality. Men's motives can not be studied as isolated units which orient them to an immediate behavior, but in the process of its regulating function through selfconscious which is considered as a distinctive aspect of a higher mental function. Motives can be conscious or unconscious, these latter called impulses. Among unconscious motives the most studied is orientation ,that is, the special preparation to satisfy a cognitive need. The conscious motives manifest the objectives of the personality. The object that may satisfy a need appears in the conscious of a person like an objective. In the case that takes our attention, that is, motivation in foreign language teaching it is important to explain how motivational factors show the truthfulness of the motivation theory stated by psychology highlighting the role of interests, needs and attitudes of the individual. DEVELOPMENT Motivation is something (as need or desire) that causes a person to act. Most language teachers agree that motivation of the students is one of the most important factors influencing their success or failure in learning the language. Motivation is certainly important for any learning operation. There are some dangers that are inherent to the term "motivation". For example, some teachers may confuse the generating of enthusiasm, undoubtedly an

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important motivational element, with the whole task of motivating the students to undertake and persevere with a work.There is also a danger in assessing motivation on the basis of questionaries and interviews. Learning part of a language may increase motivational strength. That is, the learner may want to learn the rest. The level of aspiration is a crucial variable in any learning situation. But the value of success is the most important variable. Success is not a matter of being told "That's right"! Success automatically brings certain rewards or benefits in terms of the material learned. There are at least five types of rewards available to a teacher in language teaching materials and classes. 1. Relevance of the content to the students' own language needs. 2. Completeness-Inclusion of all the language needed for the stated aims of the course. 3. Authenticity-The material should be both, linguistically and culturally authentic. 4. Satisfaction-Students should leave each lesson feeling they have benefited more than simply progressed. 5. Immediacy-Students can use the material in a lesson straight away. 1,2 and 3 apply to whole courses, 4 and 5 more particularly to individual lessons. None of these features have any strength unless they are perceived by the learner to be reliable. If the students are expected to perceive the link with life outside the classroom, then, the material or classroom activity must have strength, that is, relevance. The ways in which a student is motivated to choose to do some learning or to learn willingly, if he has no choice, are varied and complex. The role of the teacher is equally delicate. The effects of success on a learning task are not simple. The effects of failure may be equally complex. Both differ between individuals according to their needs, characteristics, ideas about the value of learning the language and the way teachers usually treat them. Language teachers should be aware of these problems and the results of investigations about them in order to plan and manage instruction that will be optionally efficient for each student to influence the students' choice and perseverance. A primary responsibility of a teacher is to revive motivation without which their hopes of speaking English fluently would never be true. Your own personality and outlook may provide students with fresh motivation. If you have genuine interest in students and their welfare, if you often smile and give praise when deserved, if you are responsible to students' difficulties, if you show faith in their abilities they will try harder to succeed in speaking English. Earl Stevick discussed the sources of motivation in a lecture he gave a few years ago at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington D.C. He pointed out that there are four major sources of motivation. 1. The joy of discovery-Students find it thrilling to discover something about a new language by themselves. If you direct the students to the point where they

make a discovery about English the benefit is more lasting, they are apt to remember the point better and are stimulated to make further discoveries. 2. The satisfaction of control-Mastering the new language material provides students with a feeling of confidence which is of great importance in keeping their enthusiasm. 3. The joy of remembrance-When you occasionally have students return to material from an earlier stage of their language program, you give them a chance to do something they already know well with its resultant psychological rewards, that is, they have an illustration of how much progress they have made. 4. The elation of use-If you can provide some way for students to use English outside the classroom whether through contact with native speakers or writing to a pen pal in English, you will provide them with the best source of motivation of all-the elation that comes from truly communicating with native speakers. Wilga Rivers sums up in one of her articles this aspect of motivation: "Students cannot be sit down in groups or sent off in pairs and told to interact in the foreign language. Motivation to communicate must be aroused." One device that always helps is to make each student feel that you are a member of the group too. Arrange chairs(if possible) in a congenial form such as a circle or semi circle. Be part of the circle, not the teacher who is always in front. And try not to let students get attached to one chair or part of the room. Move them around so that they sit next to new neighbors and can get to know each other better. Once your students develop a strong group identity you will find that they are more motivated to express themselves in English and to become real participants in the activities you plan for them. Individual Differences We do not all behave or think identically. All teachers know that some of their students will cope easily with the learning materials and activities and some will not. Some will succeed and others won't. Many of the differences in achievement will be due to circumstances, but many will be attributable to inherent characteristics of the learners. Individual characteristics of the learners may be directly or indirectly related to achievement in foreign language learning. For example, motivation may be directly and positively related, the higher the degree of motivation, the harder the learner will work and the longer he will persist. The nature of intelligence and its relation to education has been a matter of controversy for many years. If intelligence is of questionable relevance to language learning perhaps there exists a special aptitude or talent for the activity that not everybody possesses-an ear for language.

Teachers have long been interested in questions in whether certain personality traits were advantageous or not for learning a foreign language. Talkative personalities are more successful at language learning than introspective ones although the association of particular personality traits and language learning must be regarded as inconclusive at the moment. It has been suggested that people employ social strategies to obtain and keep contact in the foreign language in different situations. e.g. Join a group and act as if you understand what it is going on and give the impression, with a few well chosen words that you can speak the language. Social strategies like these are obviously personal and idiosyncratic and can hardly be taught in normal classes. It seems essential for teachers to be aware of their students as individuals and to be sensitive to many kinds of differences which may exist even in one learning group. Which of the options for coping with this situation will be chosen is a question that can only be answered by the professional in possession of all the facts about objectives of the course, the resources of the teaching situation, the students themselves, their language needs, etc. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Psychology in Foreign Language Teaching.Steven H.Mc Donough. Weiner,B.(1972 b) Attribution Theory,achievement motivation,and the educational process vol.42 p.203-215. Weiner,B.,and Kukla,A. (1970) An attributional analysis of achievement motivation,vol. 15.p. 1-20.