Motivation and Language Learning

Imagine you've prepared a language learning activity for your child. It might be something you have done with them before except this time they are not interested. 'Not interested' in the case of young children is an understatement, they might be hiding under the couch or running away.

See them run, and wonder if they've accidentally made a perfect reenactment of motivation in general. 

Motivation runs away. Interest runs away. The same exercises are not guaranteed to  raise the same level of interest and this is true of adult learners as it is true of children.

So what should we do to generate or maintain interest in learning?

1.  Whatever it is that interests you or your child should be within the material, not outside it. You should or your child be interested in studying because it's interesting not because of an unrelated reward. 

2. Do not fight boredom, listen to it. In most cases your child will be bored, if there's little room for creativity or a sense of control. The same applies to you.  You can imagine if you like, a small child inside you that gets bored and restless if a sense fun is gone.  

3. Do not get too attached to various systems and approaches. A child will want to run away if they sense that you're more excited about a specific system you have decided to apply than about the actual interaction with them. If your inner child senses that, they will too get restless. In some cases you will find yourself inexplicably blocked. 

4. Do not overdo it. Stop the learning session sooner than you think it should end. If you're teaching a child, do not let a session go so long than the child will stop it themselves. Avoid binge-learning. Pace yourself. 

5. Switch tasks often. This will help you to deal with the first point, namely finding interest in the material rather than outside it. Everything is very interesting in short quantities, even things that would be outside of your usual sphere of interest. Learning a single word with interest is worth more than trying to crap several words while fighting boredom.