Week#4 - Motivation

The Candle Problem

Dan Pink: The Puzzle of motivation

Adam Grant: Teacher Burnout

Discussion Questions

Motivation: the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.

• What motivates you to spend your time the way you do?
• (to come here at 9am on a Tuesday morning,  to spend so much time and effort studying, to keep going to your job (if you have one),  to meet friends at a coffee shop, etc?)
• What kinds of rewards or benefits do you receive for various activities?
• Do you think of yourself as a ‘motivated person’. How so and/or why not?
• Who is the most motivated person you know?  
• Why are they so motivated and how do they direct their energies?
• What do you think motivates most ‘good’ students to study hard?
• Why do you think ‘poor’ students don’t study hard?
• What generally motivates teachers?  How can they stay motivated and/or passionate as teachers?
• How can they avoid ‘burnout’?

• What things do you do for reasons of intrinsic motivation? What are the rewards?
  When do you feel like you are ‘doing your thing’?
• What things do you do for reasons of extrinsic motivation? What are the rewards?
• Compare how you feel when doing things for intrinsic vs. extrinsic reasons?
• How much of your activity as a teacher/learner is guided by intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation?
• How much are students’ activities guided by intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation?
• What would a education system that embraces intrinsic motivation be like for teachers & students?
• As a current/future educator, how can you avoid burnout?
• Can one person really motivate another person?
• How do you stay motivated after a ‘failure’ or setback?
• Can the intrinsic motivation drive be extinguished?
• When you’re on your deathbed, what do you want to be able to say about your life?

Assignment:

• Please post a blog reflection about the Week#4 discussion about Motivation. 
• Take a look at chapters 5 & 6 in the textbook.  We will be covering that materials in coming weeks. 
• Take either this learning style test and any others you'd like to on this page.  Post results on your blog if you like.
  Just for fun (and language learning) you can find your Western astrological profile here and astrological compatibility here. 
• Have a wonderful Chuseok break, full of intrinsically motivated  pleasures!

Week#3 - First Language Acquisition

Videos

Baby imitation


How Children Acquire and Produce Language

Theories of language development: Nativist, learning, interactionist

Behaviorism vs Constructivism

How Babies Learn Language

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

EBS Video: The Geography of Thought Part#1 Nouns & Verbs, Part#2 See & Be

Resources
Storybooks for Young Learners

Colors in English


Discussion Questions

• What do you remember (if anything) about your early L1 learning experiences as a child?
  
• What experiences have you had observing other young children learn L1 or L2? What observations have you made?
  
• Can you think of situations when your comprehension exceeded your production ability (in L1 or L2)?

• In your language learning environments how were comprehension and production balanced?

• How do you think they should be balanced? What factors affect this?  (e.g. age, level, type of content)

• Children tend to learn language through extensive imitation and playful repetition of language forms.  Can you think of any situations in which you did (or still do) this?

• Do you 'think' differently when speaking in L1 vs. L2?  

• Based on your experiences, how do you think Asians and Westerners think and communicate differently?
• Were you reminded of any personal experiences when viewing the video and presentation?
• Do you think these differences are increasing or decreasing over time?
• How much do you see the world in a typically Asian way as described in the video?

Assignment:
On your blog, post a short reflection about Week#3 discussions.
Also, please answer this question (on your blog):
What materials, tools, and/or sites have been most useful to you as a language learner?
Provide links if possible.


Coming Up
Flipped Classroom
Salman Khan's Ted Talk about The Flipped Classroom and/or the KBS Flipped Classroom Documentary.

SOLE
The child-driven education

Week#2 - History of Language Learnig

Presentations

• ELT Methods
• Communicative Approach

Videos

• Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
• Zone of Proximal Development

Discussion Questions and selected passages from the book

Assignment:

•  Read pages 24~50
• Create a blog post answering these questions
  ⇒Can you think of times when you learned language by the different historical approaches…
     - Grammar Translation Method?
     - Audiolingual?
     - Communicative Language Teaching?
  Which have you experienced the most?
  Give examples of activities that fit into the different methods. In what ways were they effective or not? How do you (will you) balance these approaches as a teacher?