Box 19.1 Aspects of learner motivation.

Here I wrote the two questions that the teacher told us we have to do....


How important do you think motivation is for success in language learning, compared to, for example, language aptitude?

Well I think motivation is not the same that language aptitude. Motivation is when a person wants to learn something for example English as a second language. And I think that language aptitude is when a person has ease to learn something, for example the learner here has for aptitude, skills which make easier the understanding of second language. Whit those thinking in the paper we should know that motivation is more important than language aptitude, because we could have a person who has everything for learning in a easy way,  but if he/she doesn't want to learn I think we will never get his/her attention and learning.

What characteristics and behaviors you associate with the image of a motivated learner?

Well I think that a motivated person is that one, who wants to get goals, always is interested in interesting things that can be a help for he/she. They look happy because they want to learn something new anyway, also they help people and motivate to others, I don’t know what else I could write about it.


I added it here because my lap top does not let me put like a post....it does not even work :)

An important part of the last class was about of motivation. We were studying it because we need it to know when motivation is present in any person teaching would be easier for both, student and teacher.

Positive task orientation: The learner is willing to tackle tasks and challenges,
and has confidence n his or her success. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

Any person who is confident in itself will have a good performance in what is proposed to do or learn. We can see the motivation in them, through the effort they put in carrying out its tasks and challenges that the teacher offered.

Ego-involvement: Students considered important for success in learning in order to maintain and promote their own (positive) self-image. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

The student knows that if he/she thinks in a confidence way his/her propose could be get, in this case a learning goal, he/she probably can do it, it is important that we as future teachers we also have goals to get in them.

Need for achievement: The student has the need to achieve, to overcome the difficulties and succeed in what he or she intends to do.

Here you need to have a clear goal that we want to achieve in order to get success.

High aspirations: The apprentice is ambitious, go for the demanding challenges,
high fitness and the highest scores. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

If we do not have big goals we could be bad teacher and we will not achieve the happiness in our work as teachers. Through the proposed goals we continue to grow as people and teachers of the second language.

Goal orientation: The student is well aware of the learning objectives, or specific learning activities, and directs its efforts towards achieving
them. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

We must be focused on goals to have a clear vision of what we want.

Perseverance: The student constantly invests a high level of effort learning, and not discouraged by setbacks or apparent lack of progress. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

As stated in the above lines, we must persevere to make progress in our development as learners.

Tolerance of ambiguity: The student is not disturbed or frustrated by situations involving a temporary lack of understanding or confusion, he or she can live with these patients in the confidence that understanding come later. ("A course in language teaching, practice and theory, page 289)

Knowing how to wait because the results can be good or bad, we must be convinced that we will achieve what we want, but this is not at that time.