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摘要：How can we know if and when the learners are motivated? In fact, based on the present state of knowledge in the field of motivation, it is currently impossible to accurately respond to this question. Although we cannot precisely evaluate the motivation of learners, there are several approaches we can use to estimate and increase our awareness of the presence and quality of motivation among them ad they are learning, such as personal observation, reflective diary instruments.
关键词：motivation；CALL；Foreign Language Learning
中图分类号：H31文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-01-0-02
I.The overview
Definition
Motive: a factor or circumstance that induces a person press to act in a particular way (Oxford dictionary, 2000).
Motivate: supply a motive to: be the motive of: cause (a person) to act in a particular way: stimulate the interest (of a person in an activity).
Motivation: The impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal-seeking acts (Ames, 1989).
Linking the key theories of motivation, CALL and foreign language learning
Computers and motivation:
One of the purported benefits of computer-assisted instruction is that it increases student motivation. The motivating aspects of learning with computers are widely (Warschauer, 1996;). The most frequently cited motivating aspects of using computers include:
·Using computers makes the subject more important
·Using computers at school will help me get the job
·Computers made the subject more interesting and useful
·Computers made the subject more interesting and useful
·The opportunities for rapid, frequent non-judgmental feedback
·The novelty of working with a new medium (Warschauer, 1996)
While this body of research provides a basis for beginning to understand the potentially motivating aspects of CALL, one important limitation must be taken into consideration:
Much of this research has been devoted to computer-assisted instruction in general. Foreign language learning is particular, involves numerous social, psychological and cognitive aspects which are specific to this kind of learning filed and which might be very different than for learners studying other subjects.
Foreign language learning with computers
Based on Hagen’s (1993) classroom observation, computers seem to contribute significantly to language learning and are conducive to good teaching. For example, it is patient and responds to individual needs, it is consistent in terms of delivery, quality, instructions, guidance and response, it saves time, covering the same amount of material to the same standard, and it provides immediate feedback.
However, many teachers are reluctant to use computer in their classroom teaching. At present, computer-assisted language learning is a new approach to teach language. That may be because very few computers are available in the first place for language teaching even at educational institutions. Or teachers many have to spend much time trying to deal with technical problems rather than concentrating on the contents of computer use. Despite all these obstacles, using computers is worthwhile, based on various opportunities using computers, such as e-mail, World Wide Web, word processors and other software programs in language teaching. The key is to find appropriate activities and contents to motivate student to learn. (We will discuss the activities in the following section.)
Identifying the motivational factors
Warschauer (1996) has concluded that there are three motivational factors of using computers for foreign language learning: the benefits of computer-mediated communication, the feeling of personal empowerment, and the enhancement of learning opportunities. Another possible factor is the achievement (and sense of achievement) which learning to use computers can help bring about.
Based on the pioneers’ work, I conclude the main motivational factors of using computers for foreign language learning.
·Giving ownership to pupils by enabling them to create, store and retrieve their own information in the target language in a way which they perceive as interesting and of value (Hagen, 1993);
·Extending the range of reading and writing activities (Poole, 1995);
·Encouraging active use of the target language (Vaughn, 1998);
·Providing opportunities to build up fluency (Hagen, 1993);
·Encouraging creativity because of the ease with which changes can be made to written documents and the professional way in which they can be presented (Hagen, 1993);
·Promoting a sense of accuracy (Hagen, 1993);
·Offering opportunities to explore structure and grammar in ways appropriate to a wide range of language learners (Hagen, 1993);
II.Action plan----playing with English of using computers
For young learners in particular, play is recognised to be a very powerful learning medium. This paper introduces two learning technologies which used in foreign language learning: multimedia and Internet. There are three research questions: 1) Why to use them to motivate students to learn foreign? 2) When to use them to motivate students to learn? 3) How to use them to motivate students to learn?
Aim: to help students build and maintain motivation in foreign language learning
Objectives:
·To make students be actively involved in English as foreign language learning which is appropriate to their individual needs
·To make students feel enjoyment from learning the foreign language
Using multimedia computers
Foreign language learners did not start to benefit from the revolution in new technology until recently when sound, text, and pictures could be combined in a single multimedia program on laserdisc, or on CD-ROM, or generated from inside a single box by software, such as in the case of the “multimedia computer”(Hagen, 1993). Vaughn (1998) pointed out that multimedia is the combination of sound, animation, graphics, video, and related element into a single program or system. Until the introduction of increasingly inexpensive high-speed computers and greatly improved software multimedia has become a feasible educational technology for school (Vaughn, 1998).Using multimedia computer as the effective tool to motivate students, we mainly apply it in the classroom.
1)Using video and satellite
Activities:
i.We can organize students to watch the programs from U.S.A and Great Britain, such as BBC, ITV. They can get in touch with the perfect oral English from the BBC news reporters. It’s a good way to practice listening skill.
ii.Let students choose their favourite films (the English films). Organize them to watch the films in the fixed time every week. After that, they can discuss the film, good or just so so. Ask them to discuss why they think it’s good, why the think it’s so so. They discuss in English. This is their interesting topic. We have the reason to believe they will be motivated to speak English. This activity is emphasis on practising students’ listening and oral English.
2)Making animation
Activity:According to the text’s context, we can make the interesting animation to attract students’ attention. Change the inflexible text into animation; it’s a good way to make students be interested in reading texts or other English books. This activity is emphasis on practicing their reading skill.
3)Using Desk Top Publishing (DTP)
Word processing is perhaps the most widespread use of computers (Hagen, 1993). Wish desk top publishing, however, it is possible to include drawings and pictures in text, and to produce a high-quality, professional finish.
Activities:
i.Ask students to do their work from a DTP system, such as writing paper, writing diary in English, etc. Hagen (1993) found that slower learners gain in confidence when they see the printout of their work from a DTP system. Writing for an audience can also lead to increased motivation and self –critical attitudes in students. Writing English will be enhanced via this way.
ii.Present poem with lines in wrong order use ward processing to restructure work discussion original poem versus students’ own, why did poet choose to structure in the way s/he did.
iii.Writing to read. This is a new way. Much of the development work on using computers to support reading has focused on students’ own writing. This is understandable given the great motivation attached to reading one’s own or a friend’s writing.
Using Internet
In a nutshell, it’s a worldwide network of computers, all linked together via telephone lines (Poole, 1995.). “ However, the Internet is not just about computers, it is really about people talking and sharing information” (Poole, 1995). Everything can be found on the Internet. We consider Internet as the effective tool to motivate students and we apply it mainly out of the classroom.
Activities:
i.Using World Wide Web (WWW)
The World Wide Web, or “the web” for short, makes looking around the Internet easy. This is because you can point and click on words and graphic to move around. There are so many famous English web sites, such as YAHOO, GOOGLE and so forth. Rich English resources can be found on World Wide Web.
ii.Chatting with ICQ
ICQ means, “ I seek you!” It’s a chatting tool on the Internet. Students can use ICQ to chat with the natives in English countries and to know their cultures. They can chat any topics, which they are interested in. It can learn English via chatting.
iii.Reading E-books
Although E-books never replace the printed books, there are already some advantages over printed books. Reading E-books, students can drill and practice; there are pictures as reward; most computers can read aloud the text when they display; they can set the time to finish one chapter or on story according to their own speed. It’s a good for practice their reading speed. And the computer van give ? to them, if they finish successfully.
iv.Using E-mail
No doubt we benefited from exchanging information and sending messages abroad via electronic mail (E-mail). The increasing importance of E-mail via the Intent is something language teachers can’t afford to ignore.
We can encourage students to make pal via E-mail. One of the most popular uses of e-mail is for penpal communication between students, sometimes referred to as keypals. Students can be paired with other students in the same class, or with someone anywhere in the world. They can describe their own county: the people, scenic spots, customs, etc. They can know the English countries cultural and enhance their writing English skill.
Moreover, via e-mail, students can communicate with teachers individually and get the quickly feedback. Warshauer (1995) indicated it might be to reinforce what was covered in class, to follow up on a topic, to anticipate a new topic, to provide a practical basis for a grade, to add a writing component to the class, or simply to have some individual communication with students.
III.Conclusion
There are many works about CALL, motivation and foreign language learning. But they are separately. No doubt there is linking among them. This paper is an attempt to link the three aspects: motivation, computer assisted language learning and foreign language learning. After review the literature about the computer, motivation and foreign language learning, I focus on designing activities of using computers to motivate students to learn English as foreign language. Although computer is an effective tool to motivate students to learn, there are still some problems.
·We design some activities about using Internet, but we have responsibility to protect our students from Internet.We have said, “ Everything can be found on Internet!” including sex and violence. As teachers, we are not only teaching the students knowledge, and we should teach them how to tell the good from bad.
How can we know if and when the learners are motivated? In fact, based on the present state of knowledge in the field of motivation, it is currently impossible to accurately respond to this question. Although we cannot precisely evaluate the motivation of learners, there are several approaches we can use to estimate and increase our awareness of the presence and quality of motivation among them ad they are learning, such as personal observation, reflective diary instruments.
“There is more nonsense, superstition, and plain self-deception about the subject of motivation than about any other topic.”---------Thomas F. Gibert
References:
[1]Hagen,S.Usingtechnology in language learning.Great Britain:CityPoole,B.J.Education for an Information Age.U.S.A:Wm.C.Brown Communications,Inc.
[2]Vaughn,J.S.Multimedia and Hypermedia,U.S.A:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Warschauer,M,1995.
关键词：motivation；CALL；Foreign Language Learning
中图分类号：H31文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-01-0-02
I.The overview
Definition
Motive: a factor or circumstance that induces a person press to act in a particular way (Oxford dictionary, 2000).
Motivate: supply a motive to: be the motive of: cause (a person) to act in a particular way: stimulate the interest (of a person in an activity).
Motivation: The impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal-seeking acts (Ames, 1989).
Linking the key theories of motivation, CALL and foreign language learning
Computers and motivation:
One of the purported benefits of computer-assisted instruction is that it increases student motivation. The motivating aspects of learning with computers are widely (Warschauer, 1996;). The most frequently cited motivating aspects of using computers include:
·Using computers makes the subject more important
·Using computers at school will help me get the job
·Computers made the subject more interesting and useful
·Computers made the subject more interesting and useful
·The opportunities for rapid, frequent non-judgmental feedback
·The novelty of working with a new medium (Warschauer, 1996)
While this body of research provides a basis for beginning to understand the potentially motivating aspects of CALL, one important limitation must be taken into consideration:
Much of this research has been devoted to computer-assisted instruction in general. Foreign language learning is particular, involves numerous social, psychological and cognitive aspects which are specific to this kind of learning filed and which might be very different than for learners studying other subjects.
Foreign language learning with computers
Based on Hagen’s (1993) classroom observation, computers seem to contribute significantly to language learning and are conducive to good teaching. For example, it is patient and responds to individual needs, it is consistent in terms of delivery, quality, instructions, guidance and response, it saves time, covering the same amount of material to the same standard, and it provides immediate feedback.
However, many teachers are reluctant to use computer in their classroom teaching. At present, computer-assisted language learning is a new approach to teach language. That may be because very few computers are available in the first place for language teaching even at educational institutions. Or teachers many have to spend much time trying to deal with technical problems rather than concentrating on the contents of computer use. Despite all these obstacles, using computers is worthwhile, based on various opportunities using computers, such as e-mail, World Wide Web, word processors and other software programs in language teaching. The key is to find appropriate activities and contents to motivate student to learn. (We will discuss the activities in the following section.)
Identifying the motivational factors
Warschauer (1996) has concluded that there are three motivational factors of using computers for foreign language learning: the benefits of computer-mediated communication, the feeling of personal empowerment, and the enhancement of learning opportunities. Another possible factor is the achievement (and sense of achievement) which learning to use computers can help bring about.
Based on the pioneers’ work, I conclude the main motivational factors of using computers for foreign language learning.
·Giving ownership to pupils by enabling them to create, store and retrieve their own information in the target language in a way which they perceive as interesting and of value (Hagen, 1993);
·Extending the range of reading and writing activities (Poole, 1995);
·Encouraging active use of the target language (Vaughn, 1998);
·Providing opportunities to build up fluency (Hagen, 1993);
·Encouraging creativity because of the ease with which changes can be made to written documents and the professional way in which they can be presented (Hagen, 1993);
·Promoting a sense of accuracy (Hagen, 1993);
·Offering opportunities to explore structure and grammar in ways appropriate to a wide range of language learners (Hagen, 1993);
II.Action plan----playing with English of using computers
For young learners in particular, play is recognised to be a very powerful learning medium. This paper introduces two learning technologies which used in foreign language learning: multimedia and Internet. There are three research questions: 1) Why to use them to motivate students to learn foreign? 2) When to use them to motivate students to learn? 3) How to use them to motivate students to learn?
Aim: to help students build and maintain motivation in foreign language learning
Objectives:
·To make students be actively involved in English as foreign language learning which is appropriate to their individual needs
·To make students feel enjoyment from learning the foreign language
Using multimedia computers
Foreign language learners did not start to benefit from the revolution in new technology until recently when sound, text, and pictures could be combined in a single multimedia program on laserdisc, or on CD-ROM, or generated from inside a single box by software, such as in the case of the “multimedia computer”(Hagen, 1993). Vaughn (1998) pointed out that multimedia is the combination of sound, animation, graphics, video, and related element into a single program or system. Until the introduction of increasingly inexpensive high-speed computers and greatly improved software multimedia has become a feasible educational technology for school (Vaughn, 1998).Using multimedia computer as the effective tool to motivate students, we mainly apply it in the classroom.
1)Using video and satellite
Activities:
i.We can organize students to watch the programs from U.S.A and Great Britain, such as BBC, ITV. They can get in touch with the perfect oral English from the BBC news reporters. It’s a good way to practice listening skill.
ii.Let students choose their favourite films (the English films). Organize them to watch the films in the fixed time every week. After that, they can discuss the film, good or just so so. Ask them to discuss why they think it’s good, why the think it’s so so. They discuss in English. This is their interesting topic. We have the reason to believe they will be motivated to speak English. This activity is emphasis on practising students’ listening and oral English.
2)Making animation
Activity:According to the text’s context, we can make the interesting animation to attract students’ attention. Change the inflexible text into animation; it’s a good way to make students be interested in reading texts or other English books. This activity is emphasis on practicing their reading skill.
3)Using Desk Top Publishing (DTP)
Word processing is perhaps the most widespread use of computers (Hagen, 1993). Wish desk top publishing, however, it is possible to include drawings and pictures in text, and to produce a high-quality, professional finish.
Activities:
i.Ask students to do their work from a DTP system, such as writing paper, writing diary in English, etc. Hagen (1993) found that slower learners gain in confidence when they see the printout of their work from a DTP system. Writing for an audience can also lead to increased motivation and self –critical attitudes in students. Writing English will be enhanced via this way.
ii.Present poem with lines in wrong order use ward processing to restructure work discussion original poem versus students’ own, why did poet choose to structure in the way s/he did.
iii.Writing to read. This is a new way. Much of the development work on using computers to support reading has focused on students’ own writing. This is understandable given the great motivation attached to reading one’s own or a friend’s writing.
Using Internet
In a nutshell, it’s a worldwide network of computers, all linked together via telephone lines (Poole, 1995.). “ However, the Internet is not just about computers, it is really about people talking and sharing information” (Poole, 1995). Everything can be found on the Internet. We consider Internet as the effective tool to motivate students and we apply it mainly out of the classroom.
Activities:
i.Using World Wide Web (WWW)
The World Wide Web, or “the web” for short, makes looking around the Internet easy. This is because you can point and click on words and graphic to move around. There are so many famous English web sites, such as YAHOO, GOOGLE and so forth. Rich English resources can be found on World Wide Web.
ii.Chatting with ICQ
ICQ means, “ I seek you!” It’s a chatting tool on the Internet. Students can use ICQ to chat with the natives in English countries and to know their cultures. They can chat any topics, which they are interested in. It can learn English via chatting.
iii.Reading E-books
Although E-books never replace the printed books, there are already some advantages over printed books. Reading E-books, students can drill and practice; there are pictures as reward; most computers can read aloud the text when they display; they can set the time to finish one chapter or on story according to their own speed. It’s a good for practice their reading speed. And the computer van give ? to them, if they finish successfully.
iv.Using E-mail
No doubt we benefited from exchanging information and sending messages abroad via electronic mail (E-mail). The increasing importance of E-mail via the Intent is something language teachers can’t afford to ignore.
We can encourage students to make pal via E-mail. One of the most popular uses of e-mail is for penpal communication between students, sometimes referred to as keypals. Students can be paired with other students in the same class, or with someone anywhere in the world. They can describe their own county: the people, scenic spots, customs, etc. They can know the English countries cultural and enhance their writing English skill.
Moreover, via e-mail, students can communicate with teachers individually and get the quickly feedback. Warshauer (1995) indicated it might be to reinforce what was covered in class, to follow up on a topic, to anticipate a new topic, to provide a practical basis for a grade, to add a writing component to the class, or simply to have some individual communication with students.
III.Conclusion
There are many works about CALL, motivation and foreign language learning. But they are separately. No doubt there is linking among them. This paper is an attempt to link the three aspects: motivation, computer assisted language learning and foreign language learning. After review the literature about the computer, motivation and foreign language learning, I focus on designing activities of using computers to motivate students to learn English as foreign language. Although computer is an effective tool to motivate students to learn, there are still some problems.
·We design some activities about using Internet, but we have responsibility to protect our students from Internet.We have said, “ Everything can be found on Internet!” including sex and violence. As teachers, we are not only teaching the students knowledge, and we should teach them how to tell the good from bad.
How can we know if and when the learners are motivated? In fact, based on the present state of knowledge in the field of motivation, it is currently impossible to accurately respond to this question. Although we cannot precisely evaluate the motivation of learners, there are several approaches we can use to estimate and increase our awareness of the presence and quality of motivation among them ad they are learning, such as personal observation, reflective diary instruments.
“There is more nonsense, superstition, and plain self-deception about the subject of motivation than about any other topic.”---------Thomas F. Gibert
References:
[1]Hagen,S.Usingtechnology in language learning.Great Britain:CityPoole,B.J.Education for an Information Age.U.S.A:Wm.C.Brown Communications,Inc.
[2]Vaughn,J.S.Multimedia and Hypermedia,U.S.A:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Warschauer,M,1995.