UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2) LEVEL ARTICLE
Motivate yourself the right way
It goes without saying
that motivation is necessary to success. As an English teacher in London, I was surrounded by people so motivated to learn English that they had travelled all the way to England
at no small expense
to themselves or their family. However, learning a language is about more than just putting yourself in the right environment; it takes a certain type of effort, and when it comes to putting in this certain type of effort, many people's motivation
fizzles.
What is this 'certain type of effort'?
I've noticed a big difference between motivation to do closed tasks and motivation to do open tasks.
By closed tasks, I mean small, simple, easily achievable tasks such as choosing the correct word to go in a space in the text, choosing which category something goes into, matching the things on the left with the things on the right, et cetera. When studying a second language, these kinds of tasks abound. They are quick to complete, easy to understand and can be easily found or created for any grammar point or vocabulary exercise.
What is this 'certain type of effort'?
I've noticed a big difference between motivation to do closed tasks and motivation to do open tasks.
By closed tasks, I mean small, simple, easily achievable tasks such as choosing the correct word to go in a space in the text, choosing which category something goes into, matching the things on the left with the things on the right, et cetera. When studying a second language, these kinds of tasks abound. They are quick to complete, easy to understand and can be easily found or created for any grammar point or vocabulary exercise.
Photo by Laurie Sullivan - DSC01784, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62727253
An open task, on the other hand, is one where the learners have to
generate
everything themselves. For example, writing a role-play, practising it, and performing it in front of the class. There is a lot more freedom involved in this kind of exercise since
you must create a story, make it interesting, consider the kind of language you will use, if it is correctly constructed, if the vocabulary is appropriate, if you are interacting suitably, and then do the performance at the end.
These two kinds of task are tackled very differently by students, whether they are a highly self-motivated group of adult learners or a bunch of teenagers more interested in chatting with their peers than learning anything. When you put a sheet of writing with some gaps in in front of someone, they have a very well-defined task which can then be marked to give an immediate assessment of performance. People dive into this kind of task. I remember a class of Italian teenagers who were mostly out of control, but if I gave them a gap-fill exercise, they would knuckle down for 10 minutes of frantic concentration. Which was great!! The problem was the task required very little imagination and so your brain doesn't engage and doesn't remember things.
I got to thinking about this seriously a few years ago when one of my students who had become a good friend started at university. While studying English he had worked hard and done many exercises as well as being very sociable and using English with lots of different friends. However, when he started at university his English ability soared. The reason was he was doing university projects which required him to research thoroughly before compiling the information he had gathered into his own piece of writing or presentation. This required a great deal of continuous and focussed effort - he had to immerse himself in the task, often for over a week. He was finding new vocabulary that was important to his work, so his brain tried extra hard to remember it. The obscure grammar that he had studied before was required in order to express complex ideas ("it is predicted that sales will have exceeded 1 million units by January").
While closed tasks do require effort, and students may spend hours and hours at home doing task after task, it is a lazy effort! People want to find the easiest way to work hard. And this is not just a problem for students. I know I do it in all areas of my life. It all boils down to the path of least resistance. Imagine you decide to go hiking in some mountains. You want to get from one side of the mountains to the other - do you go over the peak of one of the mountains, or do you go through the valley between them? Of course; the valley. You have taken on the difficult task of walking in the mountains, but you plan the route to be as easy as possible. (It may be that your plan is to go to the top of the mountain, but even in this case, you would plan the easiest route to the top). This is all well and good; it would be stupid to plan to use the most difficult route! But what about if your goal is to improve your hill-climbing skill? In that case, selecting the path of least resistance is not the most beneficial strategy. This is a lot like studying English - it's not so much about the time you put in, or even the effort - it is about the kind of effort. It should be via tasks that challenge you to encounter and generate as much (new) language as possible.
These two kinds of task are tackled very differently by students, whether they are a highly self-motivated group of adult learners or a bunch of teenagers more interested in chatting with their peers than learning anything. When you put a sheet of writing with some gaps in in front of someone, they have a very well-defined task which can then be marked to give an immediate assessment of performance. People dive into this kind of task. I remember a class of Italian teenagers who were mostly out of control, but if I gave them a gap-fill exercise, they would knuckle down for 10 minutes of frantic concentration. Which was great!! The problem was the task required very little imagination and so your brain doesn't engage and doesn't remember things.
I got to thinking about this seriously a few years ago when one of my students who had become a good friend started at university. While studying English he had worked hard and done many exercises as well as being very sociable and using English with lots of different friends. However, when he started at university his English ability soared. The reason was he was doing university projects which required him to research thoroughly before compiling the information he had gathered into his own piece of writing or presentation. This required a great deal of continuous and focussed effort - he had to immerse himself in the task, often for over a week. He was finding new vocabulary that was important to his work, so his brain tried extra hard to remember it. The obscure grammar that he had studied before was required in order to express complex ideas ("it is predicted that sales will have exceeded 1 million units by January").
While closed tasks do require effort, and students may spend hours and hours at home doing task after task, it is a lazy effort! People want to find the easiest way to work hard. And this is not just a problem for students. I know I do it in all areas of my life. It all boils down to the path of least resistance. Imagine you decide to go hiking in some mountains. You want to get from one side of the mountains to the other - do you go over the peak of one of the mountains, or do you go through the valley between them? Of course; the valley. You have taken on the difficult task of walking in the mountains, but you plan the route to be as easy as possible. (It may be that your plan is to go to the top of the mountain, but even in this case, you would plan the easiest route to the top). This is all well and good; it would be stupid to plan to use the most difficult route! But what about if your goal is to improve your hill-climbing skill? In that case, selecting the path of least resistance is not the most beneficial strategy. This is a lot like studying English - it's not so much about the time you put in, or even the effort - it is about the kind of effort. It should be via tasks that challenge you to encounter and generate as much (new) language as possible.
Photo by Fredlyfish4 on Creative Commons licence 4.0. Image cropped.
