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Motivation:

The Key to Classroom Management Success in ESL Classrooms

Cathryn Hoard

TED Ankara Koleji

Ankara, Turkey

cbondhoard@gmail.com

Anita Tjan

TED Malatya Koleji

Malatya, Turkey

anita.tjan@gmail.com

August 31, 2013

(Submitted to ELT Journal but not accepted.)

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Motivation: The key to classroom management success in ESL

classrooms

This article emphasizes the importance of motivation for effective classroom management

leading to greater student success in the ESL classroom. The discussion of motivation is based

on Abraham Maslow’s “Theory of Human Motivation” focusing on the middle three stages of

safety, love/belonging and esteem. The meaning of each stage is explored with practical

examples given as to how a fundamental sense of safety, love/belonging and self-esteem can be

engendered and maintained with young learners. Relying on David Hawkins’ “I-Thou-It”

educational relationship triangle, this paper also emphasizes the importance of the teacher

(“I”)—student (“Thou”) relationship with the shared experience of an engaging subject matter

(“It). Awareness of this triangle helps teachers listen to students and to see each one as a whole

person. Teachers who listen to students’ hearts have fewer classroom management problems

and are better equipped to motivate students for life-long learning and success in English.

Introduction

Motivation is a key to classroom management and success in the ESL classroom, especially for

young learners. This is because unmotivated and demotivated students do not learn. Bowing to

external pressures, students may pack away into short-term memory enough information to pass

an exam but, without internal motivation, there will be no on-going context in which to wrap and

nurture a growing body of knowledge and experience. It is therefore imperative that teachers

first understand what does motivate the students and then strategize how to turn this

understanding into actual behaviours and activities that touch the motivational core of each

student. This is especially necessary for the ESL teacher of young learners who must convince

the children of the relevancy and usefulness of the targeted subject (English) .

Classroom management is often an issue for ESL teachers, especially those teaching in cultures

which emphasize heavy external control instead of development of internal control. Young ESL

learners, unlike adult students, rarely make a choice when it comes to studying English.

Consequently, the unmotivated and demotivated young learners may disengage or disrupt the

class as a way to register their discontent. Again, no learning takes place.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) states that if a lower need is not met, then the

motivation to go to a higher stage is absent. For example, if the student is extremely hungry

(physiological need) then the student feels no motivation to encounter any other input until this

basic need is met. This example, of course, is obvious but the same is alsßo true for the “higher”

and more abstract needs of safety, love/belonging and esteem. To address these needs this paper

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suggests that teachers must understand the importance of their relational role in what David

Hawkins (1967) called the “I-Thou-It” triangle. “I” is the teacher; “Thou” is the the student and

“It” is the subject matter.

Once a teacher understands students’ felt (and real) needs, he/she is ready to remove barriers to

learning and enhance motivation by pursuing strategies and behaviours that will address those

needs within the effective bonds of Hawkins’ I-Thou-It triangle, thus greatly increasing the

probability that true learning takes place

Understanding where students are on the motivational grid

Maslow’s first essential stage for motivation is physical need. It is always hoped that children’s

parents send their children to school with their basic physical needs met. This may not always be

the case, however, with food and it is helpful for teachers to remember that a student’s

inattention could be due to too much or too little appropriate food. There is another important

aspect of a child’s physiology which must be considered as well and that is the possibility of

various learning disabilities. Most students with some form of learning disability are labelled

simply as “naughty”, “bad” or “stupid,” certainly a discouraging factor for students in any class!

The teacher who refuses to label any student as such, but leaves room for physical neurological

differences i and uses appropriate referral, support and lesson modification is validating that

student as a worthwhile individual and laying an important foundation on which the child can

grow and thrive in the classroom.

Maslow’s next stage is safety. It is usually assumed that places where children are educated are

sufficiently safe physically. This paper focuses on psychological safety. Anyone who has ever

attended school knows that the classroom can be a very cruel place. Children who have not yet

developed a mature sense of sympathy and empathy often prey on the weak, teasing them

mercilessly into silence or tears. It is the teacher’s responsibility to firmly establish from the

outset that such behaviour is not tolerated, that in fact the classroom is truly a safe zone from all

forms of personal attack.

The bedrock of the safe zone is respect. This article will talk about different techniques for

establishing respect as the overarching principle. From the very first day the teacher must both

model and monitor respect.. Respect must first be modelled by the “I” (teacher) and emotionally

experienced by the “Thou” (student). This is needed in order for all members of the class,

especially the students among themselves, to consistently show respect to one another. To

understand what respect looks like, the students with sufficient vocabulary in English can

brainstorm and share what it means for 1) the teacher to respect the students, 2) the students to

respect the teacher and 3) the students to respect one another

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With this in mind, below are some classroom practices that have been effective in creating the

safe zone for classrooms. They were used consistently with a total of 600 secondary students

over a period of three years.

1. As a teacher, do not interrupt students who are speaking in turn. If interrupting is needed,

apologizing for the interruption is needed.

.

2. Do not allow students to interrupt each other. If students interrupt each other, remind them

that this is not respectful and not allowed.

3. When students are being quiet and respectful towards any speaker (teacher or student)

praise them with appropriate rewards according to your classroom management system. One

strategy is to give and record “extra minutes” on the board when rules related to respect are

obeyed. An extra minute means that class will end a minute early (or more if the class has earned

more extra minutes). The intent is not that students respect one another only for the reward.

Consistently, it has been seen with the use of this strategy that the quickest and most effective

way to encourage students to follow the desired rules is to make the rules a game in which

students have some control over how many “points” they can earn and the way in which they can

earn them. This is especially important when the students are not used to such rules in any other

school or home context.

4. As a teacher who promises something…do it!

Again, returning to the example of “extra minutes”, saying that extra minutes will be given (or

whatever reward chosen) for attentive, helpful class behaviour, then make sure to give those

extra minutes. The tension comes when there is a lot of material to cover and time is short. It

may seem counter-productive to give “extra minutes” and actually stop the lesson early when the

full lesson has not been covered. This, however, is a short-sighted view. The few minutes of

lesson time rewarded are more than made up in later lessons attended by students who are truly

contributing and listening rather than disrupting the class. The teacher becomes the teacher they

can trust, one who keeps his/her word. It has also been found that those few “extra minutes” of

freedom turn out to be some of the best one-on-one conversations to take place between student

and teacher—in English, as students have an opportunity to ask questions and talk about what is

on their hearts without being heard by the whole class. By keeping promises, a teacher

demonstrate respect for the students and they will return the respect. Thus the teacher is also

reinforcing the foundation of a healthy “I” “Thou” relationship between teacher and student as

well as laying a strong foundation for the psychologically safe environment. In this classroom,

words are meaningful, powerful and prophetic in the sense that what is said will happen. If a

promise can’t be kept, giving an understandable and timely apology reinforces the safe zone.

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The establishment of psychological safety in a classroom is closely tied to the next stage in

Maslow’s hierarchy, love/belonging. Every society, no matter where they fall on the

individualistic/collective spectrum, is tribal to some degree. People want to belong to something.

The need to create a strong sense of belonging for students in an ESL classroom is even more

important since the subject matter is not their language. Belonging to a group means if one falls

or succeeds, the group is there to support or to cheer. So too in the ideal ESL classroom, when a

student makes a mistake, he/she is not ridiculed or laughed at, but rather corrected with dignity.

It is important to emphasise to students that “mistakes are your friends”—both for the students

and the teacher. Students are pleasantly surprised when the teacher responds, “I’m glad you

made that mistake…” and then the teacher follows up with a fuller explanation so that the

student (and probably other students in the class) understands. When students are treated with

dignity and the ESL classroom is seen as a safe place to make mistakes, more communication in

English is attempted. Students find themselves actually communicating in English without fear

and English begins to belong to them—they begin to love English. Another opportunity to

reinforce a sense of being loved and belonging is in celebrating the successes of each student

whether that success is specifically in English, or football or chess. Every student is good at

something. Find out what it is.. In this way the teacher is tying the students’ passions (an

integral part of “Thou”) to the study of English ( the “It.”).

How to Listen to students’ hearts

As humans, we listen to those we respect. We of course want the students to listen to us; but if

we are aiming to have them do more than hear and forget , we must earn the right to be listened

to by listening to them. True listening involves much more than hearing words or sounds. Just

as we teach our students, it includes paying close attention as well as thinking about and

evaluating what we are hearing and seeing. It is a holistic approach to listening that we as

teachers must practice when students are “speaking” (in the broadest sense of the word). As

teachers, of course we need to focus on the academic goals of the lesson but we also need to keep

our antennae up to catch the unconscious messages students are constantly sending out through

their verbal/nonverbal and written behaviour.

For example, after class, take a look at the L1 notes you intercept. A lot of them are simple

doodling but some may cryptically expose the throes of pre-teen drama, falling out with friends

that could point to a growing depression at not being considered one of the “cool” kids in class?

Are they “silly” notes that should tell you that, at least in this lesson, you lost their interest. Are

they pictures of things seen in nightmares--whose nightmares and why? How can your lesson on

the present touch and awaken these students to both English and life? If your lesson in some

way doesn’t touch on or at least temporarily free them from these internal world issues, you may

“cover the material” but the educational goal for the lesson will not be achieved. Briefly, here

are some other ways to holistically listen to students:

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1. Respond thoughtfully and positively to most comments, even if they are off topic. For

the rest, respond with good-natured humour.

2. When they write something happy or sad relating to their lives, write affirming

comments. An affirming comment is not the same as praising the academic merit of the writing.

It is acknowledging that you heard the student’s heart about something important in his or her

life, regardless of the correctness of the grammar. For example, if a student writes, “Last week is

bad because dog die,” you might give the work a lower than excellent mark because of the lack

of the past tense and a possessive pronoun, but be sure to comment on the event. You might say

something like, “I’m so sorry your dog died. That was a bad week!” In this way you are

validating the student’s feelings (under the circumstances something much more important that

the past tense) as well as taking the opportunity to model the correct grammar.

3. Note their posture in class. If they are disengaged, draw them in again with good-

natured, non-threatening humour. For example Tell them “It’s all about me” (the teacher) and

you’d hate for them to miss the show. If a student is continually disengaged, don’t get angry,

talk to them privately and ask them, why. Ask for suggestions of what you can do that would

make them want to participate.

4. Note if there is a change in performance either up or down, find out why. If the

change is positive, capitalize on the new found motivation and bring it into the classroom more

often (sports, science, a particular series, game). If the change is negative, talk to the student in

private. Let them know you noticed and you care. Most often the reason has nothing to do with

your class but more to do with home or friend problems. This is a time when you can affirm

your belief in them and help them understand and believe that even if much of the world around

them is not “safe” psychologically, your class, your subject is! They may end up as English

teachers if you do this.

One of the most important reasons for establishing a safe and affirming classroom atmosphere is

that this is the kind of atmosphere in which students speak the most and in which teachers can

truly hear, not just the words, but also the hearts of their students. The issue of students’

speaking can be problematic for any teacher, as students love to speak in class but not always

about the subject, in turn, or at a reasonable level. The problem is magnified in the ESL

classroom of young learners when the language spoken is also a bone of contention between

teacher and student. Yet, to silence students’ verbal expressions is to block the development of

one of the essential skills in learning English. Separately, if students are not allowed to speak,

what will the teacher listen to? How can a strong bond between teacher and student (“I” and

“Thou”) be established if the teacher hears nothing more than patterned responses to irrelevant

workbook questions?

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For this reason, some ESL teachers advocate allowing a significant amount of L1 in the

classroom (spoken by both teacher and student) so that instructions can be clearly understood

and what is on the students’ hearts and minds can be expressed. If the subject matter of the class

(“It”) were not a foreign language for the students, we would agree. Certainly the “higher goal”

of education is broader than the teaching of any one subject but, in agreement with David

Hawkins’ “I-Thou-It” triangle, the subject content is just as essential in the classroom as the

presence of teacher and students. Hopefully students will encounter many adults in their lives

who will listen to the things they have to say. The ESL classroom teacher, however, has the

unique opportunity to demonstrate to students that they can be heard even in the challenging

context of limited vocabulary and understanding of a foreign language. Success under these

circumstances greatly supports the development of the higher goals of education.

We have found that framing the classroom as “English World” provides an engaging

atmosphere in which students are invited into another dimension, as it were, and invited to “play

along.” It is of course very helpful if the teacher has his or her own classroom that can be

decorated with an exciting array of realia related to English language and culture. Even if this

isn’t the case, however, there is much the teacher can do to bring students into the “English

World” game and trigger a neurological response that creates and builds an “English World”

section of the brain out of which they can function for the duration of the lesson. For example,

one of the authors write “Welcome to English World” on the board and then start every lesson in

front of the class, counting to three and leading the class in a chorus of “Welcome to English

World!” This is the signal that the “game” has begun.

As with any game, the rules for “English World” are essential. The first rule, not surprisingly, is

RESPECT. What this word actually means, especially with regards to speaking and listening is

carefully and playfully demonstrated through words and mime. The second rule is: unless

there’s an emergency or unless permission is given, only English is spoken by both students and

the teacher throughout the lesson. Many techniques are available to positively enforce this rule.

Two techniques we use are the before mentioned, “Extra Minutes” and “English Passes.” “Extra

Minutes” is a kind of reward (and sometimes punishment) system between teacher and the class

as a whole. If the students are participating well and on task for a good amount of time, the

teacher puts a mark on the board indicating that he/she will stop the lesson a minute early (or

however many “Extra Minutes” the class earns). Negative “Extra Minutes” either take away a

positive “Extra Minute” or add minutes to the class after the bell. Students are often delighted to

find that the teacher is also affected by “Extra Minutes.” If the teacher forgets the English Only

rule and speaks L1 in the classroom, he/she is obliged to give the class a positive extra minute.

We find that many students carefully pay attention to every word the teacher says if only to catch

the teacher uttering a word in L1.

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“English Passes” (which allow students to “pass” on using English) work well for students

between the ages of 9 and 18. The teacher explains that there may be times when the student

desperately wants to express something but simply can’t do it in English. To accommodate this

situation, each semester every student is given 12 “English Passes” that have their names on it,

look a little bit like money and are not transferable. If a student feels the need to use L1, he/she

may ask for permission and surrender one “English Pass.” There is no punishment for using an

“English Pass” but any unused “English Passes” at the end of the semester are added as bonus

points to students’ oral grade or evaluation. Also, students who don’t use any “English Passes”

are given a certificate stating that they are a “Super Speaker of English.” Thus the use of L1 in

“English World” becomes a strategy decision in the hands of the student. Most often, students

choose to make the extra mental effort to make themselves understood in English rather than

surrender their passes.

One more important aspect of the “English World” game is the practice of taking turns. Children

who are never given a chance to “make their move” in a game quickly give up playing at all.

The same is true in the ESL classroom for any student who is rarely asked to “take his or her

turn” by answering a question. Too often it is the case in any classroom that the most confident

students answer all the questions while the rest sit frustrated or opt out of the game/lesson

completely. To avoid this and make sure that every student has the opportunity to speak and be

heard, we use a random card system rather than calling on those who raise their hands. At the

beginning of the year we have students write their names on a small card and also draw a simple

self-portrait of themselves. Interestingly, the self-portrait students draw often “speaks” volumes

about who they are and how they view themselves. Every lesson the cards are shuffled.

Students are thus called on randomly and can’t hide behind the confident hand-raisers. A plus is

recorded on the card, not so much for the right answer but for simply reading the right question

or in some way indicating that he/she has been following the exercise. This practice again

reassures students that mistakes are not to be feared, gives even the most struggling student a

sense of competency and reinforces the important sense of belonging as every member of the

class has an opportunity to participate in the game/lesson. In order to develop students’ peer

listening skills, students can also be asked to summarize what the previous student said before

earning the right to share their ideas or answers. This is particularly helpful for the ESL student

who must move beyond memorization to understanding. By putting a classmate’s comments

into their own words they are producing a kind of original language that demonstrates a higher

level of acquisition and thinking.

Conclusion: Motivated Students Manage Themselves

Dornyei and Czizer (1998) surveyed over two hundred ESL Hungarian teachers on effective

motivation strategies. They distilled the results to the top ten strategies for motivating language

learners. Out of those ten, six of them intersect with what this article has covered: Setting a

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personal example, developing a relationship with the students, increasing the learner’s self-

confidence in speaking English, making classes interesting, personalising the lessons, and

creating a welcoming atmosphere. The outcome of using effective motivating strategies are

students who can manage themselves and make choices as they interact with the “It”, with each

other (“Thou”) and with the teacher (“ I “). And learning takes place.

WORD COUNT is 3668

Includes abstract (146 words)

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REFERENCES

Dornyei Z. and Kata Czizer K. 1998. ‘Ten commandments for motivating language learners:

results of an empirical study’. Language Teaching Research 2/3,: 203-229.

Hawkins, D. 1967. The Informed Vision: Essays and Learning and Human Nature. Algora

Publishing..

Maslow, A. 1943. ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.

Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm