The problem FL teachers face working with students who do not major in languages is lack of motivation to study foreign languages. I studied the reasons why my students majoring in International Economics did not feel motivated in FL/ESP learning and what prevented them from feeling like successful learners. These reasons were: the students´ poor communicative skills in the language, difficulties in building relationships with each other, shortage of meaningful contents of the textbooks.
To solve the problem, I addressed psychological motivation theories. In the psychological literature, motivation is defined as "a psychological process giving behavior purpose and direction" [Kreitner, 1995, p.398]. The study of Maslow´s needs hierarchy theory [Maslow, 1943], Herzberg´s two-factor theory [Herzberg, 1968], expectancy theory, and goal-setting theory, Vygotsky´s potential development zone theory [1991], Rodgers [1984] psychological conditions facilitating a person´s growth helped me to formulate possible solutions to the motivation problems. They might be:
- fulfilling students´ needs;
- stimulating an individual´s desire for growth and achievement/accomplishment;
- providing an enriching educational environment;
- creating a supportive climate in the group;
- setting challenging, but attainable goals.
I went through the inventory of teaching methods and techniques, based on the communicative, interactive and reflective methods, in order to use these solutions to motivate students in ESP learning and facilitate their personal growth.
Reflective skills are essential for students to observe their own accomplishments and learn from their failures in the process of FL acquisition. Role play, games, group work, and problem-solving, discussions - techniques widely employed by FL/ESP teachers to develop their learners´ communicative and interactive proficiency - were applied in my practice to encourage students´ personal growth, stimulate their desire for achievement and enrich the educational environment.
Fulfilling an individual´s needs in FL/ESP classes requires learning them. The Rokeach value survey, Klippel´s game "Aims in Life" are helpful in this respect.
To meet students´ needs for respect, self-esteem and accomplishment the following techniques might be used: compositions "The accomplishments I am proud of", games for ranking desirable qualities, job-related quizzes, resume writing.
An individual´s desire for growth and achievement might be stimulated by team work, it requires joint efforts; participants find themselves in a situation where they have to get along with one another, while solving problems and taking decisions. In small group activities communicative skills, necessary for successful interaction, are developed.
The selection of meaningful challenging reading materials and communicative activities for prospective economists is a way to motivate them.
Effective motivators for FL/ESP learners are communicative, language-based business games, "real- life" problems, case studies.
My students´ accomplishments monitored for five years prove that students grow as personalities and develop their best potentials.
Identifying and fulfilling students´ needs for growth, self-respect and self-esteem in an meaningful, job-related environment; setting measurable goals while developing students´ communicative skills; creating a supportive climate by introducing a humanistic teacher-student and student-student interactive style, using the developmental potential of small group activities, stimulating individuals´ desire for growth and achievement/accomplishment by assessing their own progress in mastering English; and enriching the educational environment with team work, role play, communicative language and business games proved to be effective ways to motivating students to learn FL/ESP, while developing their communicative and interactive skills.
References
- Herzberg, F. (1968, January- February). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 46.
- Klippel, F. (1998). Keep talking. Communicative fluency activities for language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kreitner, R. (1995). Management. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Lloyd, A., & Preier A. (1996). Business Communicative Games. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Locke, E. A., & Latham, C. P. (1984). Goal setting: A motivational technique that works!" Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Maslow, A. H. (1943, July). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
- Mawer, J. (1992). Business games. Hove: Language Teaching Publications, pp.40-41.
- Rodgers, C. (1984 translated into Russian) On becoming a person. Boston: Houghton Muffin Company.
- Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.
- Выготский Л.С. (1991) Педагогическая психология. - М.