Learning Motivation in Foreign Language Education

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5. Learning Motivation in Foreign Language Education

Learning motivations exist in every learning behavior. Stronger learning motivation results in better learning performance. It is the duty of teachers, parents, and community to strengthen the students’ learning motivation. Winkel 1996: 150 defines learning motivation as all internal drives which prompts the learning activities, support the continuation of learning and direct the learning activities toward a particular goal. This means that learning motivation plays an important role to promote the spirit of learning so that students with high motivation have strong energy to perform learning. Meanwhile, Sardiman 2011: 75 defines learning motivation as non-intellectual physical factors which have specific roles in promoting learning enthusiasm, joy, and interest. Intrinsic motivation influences human behavior to pursue higher needs greater than the extrinsic one. It means that in education students will be more motivated to perform better learning when they have strong intrinsic learning motivation. Brown 2001: 77-78 suggests that teachers convert extrinsic motivation into the intrinsic one in the shake of better outcome of learning. Students may be given chance to satisfy their own very basic drive through the more students centered learning. Working together in solving problems, by devoting balance participation to team will meet the drive of self-actualization. The opportunity to share ideas through cooperative learning may result in better performance and the appreciation of love, intimacy, and respect of others. Class commit to user 41 discussions which focus on critical evaluation of society may result in a sense of belonging, a sense of the value of wider community and of harmony. Then, Whittaker 1970: 376 states that intrinsically motivated second language learners show the following aspects: 1 high genuine interest; 2 positive attitude toward the lesson; 3 enthusiastic manner in learning; 4 hard effort in fulfilling the goal; 5 high courage to discover the learning; and 6 ultimate autonomy and independence. Furthermore, Winkel 1996: 173-175 states that intrinsic motivation in learning activities exists when learning begins and continues based on the consciousness and drives which absolutely deal with the learning activities themselves. Thus, the intrinsic learning motivation arouses from the realization of the needs to be successful and students perform hard efforts through learning to satisfy the needs. The learning behavior is usually accompanied by high interest, positive attitude toward the lesson, curiosity, and consciousness that learning will enrich the students themselves. Furthermore, in extrinsic motivation according to Winkel 1996: 173-175, learning behavior begins and persists based on the drives which are not absolutely deal with the learning itself. It deals with external reward including praise, prize, and avoidance of threat or punishment. Moreover, extrinsic learning motivation involves: 1 learning for obligation; 2 learning for avoiding punishment; 3 learning for prizes; 4 learning for social status; 5 learning for praises; and 6 learning for position or promotion in career. commit to user 42 Meanwhile, Brown 2001:76 states that extrinsically motivated behaviors, on the other hand are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even certain types of positive feedback. Behaviors initiated solely to avoid punishment are also extrinsically motivated, even though numerous intrinsic benefits can ultimately accrue to those who, instead, view punishment avoidance as a challenge that can build their sense of competence and self determination. Based on the explanation above, the researcher assumes that learning motivation is an internal process to make a person moves to a goal. It can be concluded that motivation is a set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behavior. It refers to the internal conditions or states that activate or energize human being to perform certain behavior to reach the goal. Based on the origin, motives are classified into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the motives that come from the inner heart of a person. It occurs when people engage in an activity, such as hobby, without obvious external incentives. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside the performer. Money is the most obvious example, but threat of punishment is also common extrinsic motivations. In education, intrinsic learning motivation plays a greater role in increasing student’s learning motivation than the extrinsic one. Therefore, learning activities should be provided with sufficient intrinsic learning motivation and teachers should convert the extrinsic motivation into the intrinsic one. The teaching-learning process, which now still tends to provide immediate reward or commit to user 43 extrinsic motivation, may be converted to the more students-centered rather than teacher-centered. The classes should provide the students with more chance to solve some problems and make progress in learning by themselves through teamwork or cooperative learning. Based on the explanation, the writer would like to put the theories into indicators of motivation that students have. The indicators are given as follow: 1 Genuine interest; 2 Curiosity; 3 Enthusiastic manner in learning; 4 Need for achievement; 5 Teacher’s methodology; and 6 The influence of groups.

F. Review on Related Researches