Effective Ways to Cultivate Students’ Motivation

According to the modern psychology study， motivation has three functions： stimulating function， selecting and pointing function and maintaining and regulatory function. Motivation can help students to set great goals， improve their English level， overcome learning difficulties and get good grades in the competition. What’s more， it can arouse students' interest in learning English.

Motivation is the prerequisite of learning. However， most of primary and middle school students lack positive motivation in the process of English learning. So we should try some effective ways to cultivate students’ motivation.

1 Strengthening the purpose of English education and arousing enthusiasm

Correct and precise learning objective is the necessary condition of improving learning motivation. Theoretical study and practical experience shows that if teachers find a way that adapt to the schoolchildren’s psychological development level， they can cultivate students’ motivation successfully. For example， make students discuss the significance of learning English to Shanghai expo 2010 or the effect of the popularization of English on the Beijing Olympics. All this kind of discussion can help students get a belief to work hard， thus， cultivate them correct motivation.

2 Founding question situation， implementing heuristic teaching

“Question situation” can stimulate students’ understanding interest and aspiration for knowledge and it’s an effective teaching method. To set up founding question situation is a task with difficulty. You should cause psychological suspense in students’ mind. Before the answer time teachers can divide students into several group to do group discussion， and energetically advocate cooperation study. Because the discussion can not only help students learn new things and expand their cognition structure， but also make them be clear with their existing concepts and reconstruct news.

3 Updating teaching content， reforming teaching methods

Students are often weary of studying because of the old， messy and inflexible teaching contents. Instead， the teaching method which is logic， systematic and entertainment would make the students obtain spiritual satisfaction so as to stimulate students’ further learning motivation. The logicality and the systematicness of the teaching content are welcomed by the students who are good at rational thinking. The interest and novelty of the teaching content usually induce students’ curiosity， psychological exploration. It’s clear that teaching content and methods have a close relationship with students’ learning motivation. Therefore， only the teachers who use the teaching materials creatively， solidify their professional skills and get advanced teaching method can arouse students’ enthusiasm.

4 Feeding learning outcomes back in time， urging students study strenuously

Feedback is to make students know their learning results and the practical application results timely， and stimulate their further study motivation. Many researches show that the feedback of study results can enhance students’ confidence and urge students to study strenuously. For example， when students see their examination results they would be clear with their progress and weakness. All these can help students improve their grades.

The feedback must not only be clear and detailed， but also timely and often. Students need to know what is right， how to do right and experience the feeling of competence， then they will get further learning wish and pay their maximum effort constantly.

5 Conducting activities properly， using rewards and punishment effectively

On the basis of providing the feedback of the study result， it will work better when appreciating rightly， praising properly and criticizing suitably. Praise and encouragement sometimes is more effective than criticism and accusation. Because the former can let the students to get more experience of success， and build the confidence of study gradually. For example， after the dictation， teacher could give certain reward to the students who write and read completely right. But sometimes it will produce the negative effect when giving excessive praise and reward. Teacher should avoid that students will regard the award as the goal and just treat the study task as a way to achieve the goal.

Student is the subject of study. The ultimate goal of modern English teaching is to develop students’ linguistic competence and communicative ability. In order to achieve this objective successfully the teacher should be a good organizer， participant， guide and language researcher and pay attention to many factors in the process of teaching. The teaching activities not only need students’ Attention， observation， memory， imagination and other intelligence factors to be involved in， but also need their interest， emotion， will， character and other non-intelligence factors. Both this two aspects are indispensable to achieve learning success.

【参考文献】

[1]李伯，燕国材.教育心理[M].武汉：华东师范大学出版社，2000，8.

[2]刘道义.小学英语教学特点与小学英语课面临的挑战[J].中小学英语活页文选， 2001（8）.