Quotes as Motivation Drivers in a Long-Hour Class

Dildora Toshpulatova, Uzbekistan

Dildora Toshpulatova has been teaching EAP to first-year students at Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT), Uzbekistan since 2014. She has more than 8 years of experience in teaching English to university students. She holds a Master’s degree in Linguistics (English language) from Namangan State University, Uzbekistan and Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology from Texas A & M University, USA. Her research interests include student motivation and academic performance, learned helplessness and learning goals. E-mail: dtoshpulatova3@wiut.uz, d.tashpulatova@yahoo.com

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Introduction
Sample activities
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Maintaining students’ attention and stimulating their interest towards learning in an hour-long session can be a challenging task for instructors across disciplines. This task becomes even more challenging when students have to study a lot of complex concepts and complete tasks that require a lot of determination and perseverance. In fact, increase in cognitive load and continuous and serious assessment could at times be overwhelming and discouraging for some students. For more than eight years I have taught adolescent male and female students from diverse backgrounds, with mixed abilities and various expectations. I have worked with students whose prior knowledge and earlier learning experiences had powerful impact on their expectations and learning behaviour. In attempt to cope with such set of variables, I have used a wide range of activities and teaching approaches aimed at managing such diversity. As a result, I have come to believe that students need support not only in understanding complex concepts and receiving feedback, but also being constantly motivated to achieve better results in their studies. In fact, the correlation between student motivation and learning achievement has been shown in a number of studies (Guilloteaux and Dörnyei, 2008; Raymond et al., 2008; Ferla, Valcke and Schuyten, 2010; Perry et al., 2008).

My search of ways to trigger students’ motivation has led me to try many ways one of which is using motivational quotes that could be connected to materials taught in class. I have come to believe they can help maintain students’ interest and motivation in studies. Motivational quotes represent collection of words of wisdom by knowledge-oriented, hardworking and successful people having high learning values. Utilization of quotes in the classroom could stimulate such motivation elements as “the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience” (Littlewood, 1987, cited in Dhanavel, 2006). In addition, quotations could be used to explain different language aspects including vocabulary categories, structures of sentences, pronunciation of words and others (Dhanavel, 2006). Students, adolescents in particular, are receptive to ideas in quotes as they can personally relate to and learn new lessons from them. Therefore, they could motivate them to be more persistent and patient in their studies. In this respect, I have developed and conducted some activities using quotes in my classroom. These activities have added novelty and have stimulated my students’ interest in learning.

Sample activities

1. My choice

In this activity students are given a list of quotes (five to ten) that are thought-provoking, relevant to their learning experience and encouraging. Students are given time to read and discuss them within small groups. They are encouraged to select one they can most relate to and agree with, and are asked to write their understanding of it and share their thoughts with other students. Students have to justify their answers and provide reasons for their ideas. This could spark rigorous and interesting discussions and possibly motivate students to improve their learning behaviour. Through discussion of different motivational quotes students could be encouraged to form new attitudes towards their studies and relate to them in other situations.

A sample list of motivational quotes:

• Energy and persistence conquer all things.
  Benjamin Franklin
• Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
  Aristotle
• An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
  Benjamin Franklin
• I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
  Woodrow Wilson
• I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
  Thomas Jefferson
• There is no giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps.
  Peter A. Cohen
• Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
  Jim Rohn
• Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
  Confucius
• I am always doing that which I cannot do; in order that I may learn how to do it.
  Pablo Picasso
• Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
  OgMandino

Adapted from: FDSE (2016). 100 Motivational quotes – quote corner.

2. A Perfect Match

Another activity with the use of motivational quotes is matching quotes to different pictures. Although this activity might require more time and preparation, it has several benefits. Students are provided a list of quotes and a number of pictures which they should match by making connections between the two items. This activity could be done both individually and in groups. If students do it individually, they could be asked to explain their choice in written form and then asked to present it to the class. Alternatively, students could be encouraged to work in groups and make their choice and prepare to explain it in the class. This could save time and be quite enjoyable because students have to be creative and think critically. Some examples are as follows:

3. My Motivational Quotes

One more way to incorporate motivational quotes into a class is to encourage students to create their own quotes. Throughout a semester, students often are required to complete tasks and during the process, it is useful to ask them to reflect upon their experiences. It is also a good idea to connect this activity to the lesson’s content. Alternatively, students could be asked to write quotes in small groups. This could be even more enjoyable, because students can relate to similar experiences and, probably, take up a habit of writing their own quotes that could drive their motivation and interest in learning. Some topics to give students direction are: recent assignment, goals, mistakes, feedback and improvement. In a research by Dhanavel (2006) topics such as leadership, education, wisdom, success, proverbs, ability, imagination, character, life, humankind, happiness, habit, self-confidence, beauty, courage, friendship, knowledge, justice, belief, creativity and others were successfully used.

Here are some examples of quotes produced by students in my class:

• Tomorrow is late to start.
• Being able to choose the right partners to work with is the first step on the ladder of success in any business.
• It does not matter where you study. What matters is how you study.
• Think a thousand times before making a decision, but after taking (making) a decision never turn back if you get a thousand difficulties.
• Do not find time, make it.
• I am strong, because I know my weakness.
• Every new idea creates a road to success.
• There is no perfect time until you start.

4. Practicing paraphrasing

For some of the activities in their EAP classes and essay writing students may be required to use paraphrasing. It is, therefore, helpful to ask them to paraphrase motivational quotes. While a quote can motivate students, it can also let them practice their paraphrasing skills, as there are numerous quotes that use simple phrases and sentence structures. Some examples are:

Discipline is remembering what you want.
David Campbell
Possible paraphrase: You could be reminded of your desires through discipline.

Honesty is the best policy.
Benjamin Franklin
Possible paraphrase: Being honest is an optimum strategy in dealing with a matter.

Conclusion

Overall, usage of motivational quotations in teaching English to students of diverse backgrounds and aptitudes has a number of benefits. They can be incorporated at any stage of a class. They can be utilized as warm-up activity and even to explain a concept. Also, motivational quotes are important tools in stimulating students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. Importantly, they can be a powerful source of motivation to persevere with those assignments that require a lot of patience and hard work. Students can be encouraged to exert more effort into their studies through the use of motivational quotes. Importantly, these activities could be used in many other language classes where students have language proficiencies at varying levels. This goes well beyond EAP classes!

References

Dhanavel, P. (2006). Quotations for motivation in the ESL classroom. Available from https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/quotations-for-motivation-in-esl-classroom.html

Guilloteaux, M. J. and Dörnyei, Z. (2008). Motivating language learners: a classroom-oriented investigation of the effects ofmotivational strategies on student motivation.TESOL Quarterly, 42 (1), 55-77. Available from https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/quotations-for-motivation-in-esl-classroom.html

FDSE (2016). 100 Motivational quotes – quote corner. Available from
http://www.docscrewbanks.com/pdf/motivational-quotes-for-students-pdf

Ferla, J., Valcke, M. and Schuyten, G. (2010). Judgments of self-perceived academic competence and their differential impact on students' achievement motivation, learning approach, and academic performance, European Journal of Psychology of Education, 25 (4), 519-536. Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23421486

Perry, R. P., Stupnisky, R. H., Daniels, L. M. and Haynes, T. L. (2008) Attributional (explanatory) thinking about failure in new achievement settings. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 23 (4), 459-475. Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23421510

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