Enhancing Motivation in the Foreign Languages Classroom

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, University of Hildesheim, language: English, abstract: Motivation is, without question, the most complex and challenging issue facing teachers today (Scheidecker and Freeman 1999:116, cited in Dörnyei 2007:1). This quotation covers the importance of motivation for successful language learning in the modern classroom. There are several ways of enhancing students¿ motivation in the EFL classroom but an important one is to create the lesson on the basis of the learners¿ interests. Everyone, who looks back on their former school days, might remember that learning was more enjoyable when the topics were interesting and furthermore, when they were handled in an exiting way. The intention of this paper at hand is to present several ideas of improving the general motivation in the classroom according to the consideration of learners¿ interests. In addition to that, the current interests of students from German secondary schools and the consideration of the interests in the common English classroom will be presented with the help of a questionnaire. This paper consists of six main parts. Part one is an overview of the terms motivation and interest. At first, motivation and interest will be defined in their psychological context and in the following these terms will relate to their meaning in the English classroom. It is necessary for the further content of this paper because both of these terms appear frequently throughout the text. In addition to the first part, the second part will mention the importance of incorporating students¿ interest in the learning classroom. The third part of this paper will deal with several possibilities of creating motivational conditions in the L2 classroom. Therefore, this paper brings four main factors into focus: the role of the teacher, the role of the student, the atmosphere in the classroom and the lesson itself. In all four sections several ideas will be given how to create a language learning atmosphere that is motivating to the participants of the English classroom. In addition to the third part of this paper at hand, part four is about a research which is conducted on the basis of the theoretical aspects which are presented in part one, two and three. The intention of the research is, to find out the current interests of students of secondary schools according to different factors of the English learning classroom and furthermore the handling of students¿ interests in the lessons. [...]