Oxford University Press – English Language Teaching – Global Blog

In the first of a three-part series, Mark Hancock, co-author of the English Result series, defines and explores two kinds of motivation that can lead to different learning outcomes with adult learners of English as a foreign language.

‘Many people give up on learning after they leave school because thirteen or twenty years of extrinsically motivated education is still a source of unpleasant memories. Their attention has been manipulated long enough from the outside by textbooks and teachers, and they have counted graduation as the first day of freedom.’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002)

Three key terms in this quote are motivated, attention, and learning, and they are closely related. Attention determines what appears in consciousness, and without it no learning can be done. Attention is a kind of psychic energy, an effort of the mind, and to make this effort, you must be motivated to do so. The quote implies that there is more than one kind, or quality, of motivation; it speaks of being extrinsically motivated, implying a contrast with intrinsically motivated.

And it seems that these different kinds of motivation can lead to different learning outcomes. Stevick has pointed out, ‘In the long run, the quantity of your students’ learning will depend on the quality of the attention they give to it’ (Stevick 1982). Csikszentmihalyi’s quote is pessimistic about the quantity of learning which will result, in the long run, from relying exclusively on extrinsic motivation.

So what are these two kinds of motivation?

Continue reading ‘Enjoying Learning: Motivating Adults through Content (Part 1)’

via oupeltglobalblog.com

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