The Relationship Between Teacher’s Feedback and Students’ Motivation

Marlena Grombczewska, Poland

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Introduction
What is motivation
What is feedback
The relation between the feedback and motivation
Research on students’ motivation and the teacher’s feedback
Bibliography

Introduction

Learners of foreign languages have different personality traits, interests and goals in their education. To achieve these goals, every student follows their own way. They are driven by individual needs and desires. For many students, teachers play an extremely important role, since they direct them in their language learning. Thus, the ways in which they behave and what they say are significant for the attitude of the learners. During a lesson a teacher corrects students’ mistakes and comments on their performance, by providing them with feedback. The way it is done influences students’ motivation to learn a language. There is a visible correlation between teacher’s feedback and learner’s motivation.

What is motivation

The term “motivation” involves the basic psychological reasons explaining why people behave in a given way and what actions they perform. Motivation can be defined as a force or a factor that causes that a given person behaves in a certain manner. Dornyei and Otto define motivation in the following way:

In general sense, motivation can be defined as the dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and  motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritised, operationalised and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out.

Gardneris the most influential researcher who deals with the motivation to learn a second language  and focuses on the motivation in the second language acquisition. According to Gardner and Lambert:

The motivation to learn the language of other community is primary force responsible for  enhancing or hindering intercultural communication and affiliation.

Gardnercreated a special motivation theory. He considers motivation as a kind of a “central mental engine” or an “energy centre” which includes effort, will and task-enjoyment(Dornyei, 2001:49). This theory includes also further ideas about motivation. Gardner claims that we can differentiate three components of motivation:

• motivational intensity
• desire to learn the language
• attitude towards learning the language.

According to these components we know that learners’ second language acquisition depends on how strongly they are engaged in language learning, how much they want to acquire new knowledge and how they perceive their learning.

There are different taxonomies of motivation. Generally, we can distinguish primary and secondary motivation. Primary, also called basic,  motivation includes our needs for self-preservation. These are so called primary motives, for example thirst, hunger or warmth. These motives influence our behaviour on a very basic level. Secondary motivation is a kind of a learned motivation. Its motives depend on the sense of values and priorities in life, different for every person. That is why this motivation is idiosyncratic to everyone. Our behaviour triggered by secondary motivation is conscious. We are conscious of the goals that we want to achieve.

Secondary motivation can be extrinsic and intrinsic. Our extrinsic motivation is driven by the awareness that our behaviour will be rewarded. With intrinsic motivation our behaviour is also rewarded in some way, but it is a more psychological reward. The results are not visible to the others, and they are noticeable only to a given person in the form of, for example, satisfaction.

To present the idea of these two types of motivation more precisely, we can look at them in the context of learning a second language. For instance, a student is motivated by the possibility of getting a good grade. This is his external motivation. However, the fact that he possessed new knowledge can be a reward for him. This psychological reward is his intrinsic motivation.

There are many factors which influence students’ motivation, such as satisfaction, interest, prizes, marks, opinion of peers, etc. One of them is also classroom feedback, which significantly affects students’ motivation and, consequently, language acquisition.

What is feedback

Łęska  provides the following definition of feedback:

It is information concerning the comprehension and reception of the speaker’s message given by the listener.

On the basis of this definition we can assume that feedback is the information given back to the listener during a conversation. It shows our attitude towards the listener and influences their  attitude towards us.

Everything  we perform and that gives some response to our listener can be considered feedback. We have different ways of providing classroom feedback. We can provide it verbally and non-verbally. Verbal feedback can be expressed by positive or negative comments and corrections. Non-verbal is shown by, for example, gestures or facial expressions.

The relation between the feedback and motivation

Looking once again at Gardner’s components of motivation, we can see that one of them is attitude, which can be influenced by many factors. One of the indicators that influence our attitude is feedback. Consequently, we can assume that feedback is closely connected with motivation. Here we can look at students’ motivation and teacher’s feedback. The way a teacher provides it to learners has the influence on their motivation towards learning. To be more precise, acquiring a second language may be dependent on what teachers say. If they give positive comments to students, it is more likely that their attitude will be positive and their goal will be to get some new knowledge. As we already know, this is the drive for intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, when teachers’ comments are negative or when they correct a lot, this can discourage learners and create a negative attitude towards learning languages. The only aim for them may be the desire to get a good mark and to be promoted to the next grade.

Research on students’ motivation and the teacher’s feedback

The research is going to be conducted to prove that there is a relation between the teacher’s feedback and students’ motivation. The results are likely to show to what extent the manner in which the teacher provides students with feedback is correlated with their motivation. The result that is expected is that students’ intrinsic motivation is higher when the teacher provides more positive comments and fewer corrections.It is assumed that students are encouraged to learn languages when it gives them pleasure and satisfaction. To get such an effect, they should be encouraged by teachers, with the help of their positive attitude.

We are planning to conduct the research in the lower secondary school. The participants will be the learners of two classes and their second language teachers. the time and the type of the feedback given by the teachers must be checked, together with the type of learners’ motivation.The research in this subject involves non-participant observation and is both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative study involves the analysis of recorded lessons, on the basis of which the amount of feedback will be measured. Thanks to that it could be presented in the numbers. The quantitative study involves two components. One is the measure of feedback, in the sense of how much time a teacher devotes to positive comments, negative comments and correction. The second one is the analysis of the questionnaire concerning student’s motivation. By means of this questionnaire it will be possible to specify towards which type of motivation the motivation of the students (extrinsic or intrinsic) is directed .

To measure the amount of time which is spent by teacher on providing students with feedback during each of the observed lessons, the following instrument is going to be used:

The feedback will be measured in seconds and then presented in per cents in relation to the total time of a given lesson. Each square in the chart corresponds to two seconds of the lesson. Positive comments, negative comments and corrections are measured separately. When the teacher provides feedback in English, the letter E is put into the relevant square. When feedback is provided  in Polish, then the letter P is put.

Students’ motivation will be measured with the help of the following questionnaire:

1. I like English.
2. I learn English because I want to satisfy my parents’ expectations.
3. I’m trying to get good grades because then I get some reward from my parents.
4. I learn English because it is a pleasure for me.
5. I learn because I want to have good grades.
6. I learn because I want to be appreciated by others.
7. I feel the desire to improve my knowledge and skills in English. Then I feel satisfied.
8. I learn because I want to be promoted to the next grade.
9. I am interested in the culture of English speaking countries ( Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia) and I would like to know more about them.
10. I learn only when there  is going to be a test.
11. I don’t like when other students are better than me. I’m trying to be in the group of the best learners.
12. I would like to read English books and to watch English films without subtitles.
13. I like doing exercises and activities given by the teacher.
14. In general, I like learning languages.

While filling in the questionnaire learners are to mark if the statements are true for them. These statements are ascribed to one of the types of motivation. Some of them apply to intrinsic and some to extrinsic motivation. Questions number 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 indicate extrinsic motivation. Questions number 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14 indicate intrinsic motivation. This questionnaire will be given to the students in their mother tongue.

To conduct the research we need to set the variables:

• Independent 
  • the ways two teachers give feedback
  • the amount of feedback
• Dependent
  • how it influences students’ motivation
• Control
  • two groups of student in the same lower secondary school
  • all the student at the same age
  • the same level of proficiency
  • the use of the same course book.

The fact that students do not differ in their age, level of proficiency and the used book gives  the possibility that the results of the research will be reliable. Conducting this research is also possible because of the difference in the ways that two teachers give the feedback. One of them provides it by using lots of positive comments, both verbal and non-verbal, and fewer negative comments or corrections. The other teacher provides his feedback mostly by means of  correction or negative comments, rarely using some positive comments.

To get the general idea of the whole project, the pilot research has been conducted during which the feedback during one lesson with one of the teachers has been measured. The  survey with the group of students taught by this teacher has also been conducted during the observed lesson. The results of one lesson that has been observed so far are presented in the table below:

Summarizing the results, positive comments prevail in the teacher’s feedback. They take more than half of the time devoted to feedback, i.e. 2.7 %. Negative comments constitute 0.7 % and correction 1.0 %.

The analysis of the questionnaire specifying the type of learners’ motivation is presented here. It was conducted in the group of 21 students. The results are as follows:

The results show that 67 % of the students participating in the survey agree with the statements for intrinsic motivation and 33 % of them disagree. Considering extrinsic motivation, 44 % agree with the statements and 56 % disagree. Summarizing, 61.5 % of the learners in this class are motivated more by intrinsic motives and 38.5 % by extrinsic motives. On the basis of these results, we can observe the predominance of intrinsic motivation over the extrinsic one.

As the results show, intrinsic motivation dominates among the students who were provided with more positive comments and fewer corrections or negative remarks. If the results of the further research prove that more positive comments and fewer corrections influence positively learners’ intrinsic motivation, then teachers should provide more positive feedback. Giving positive comments to learners is likely to encourage them to learn a second language.

Bibliography

Dorney, Z. 2001. Teaching and Researching Motivation. England: Pearson Education- Longman

Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Komorowska, H. 2001. Metodyka nauczania języków obcych. Warszawa: Fraszka Edukacyjna

Łęska, K. 2008. Teachers’ Use of Interaction Patterns in a Foreign Language Classroom and Gains in Students’ Oral Fluency. Częstochowa: WSL

Skehan, P. 1989. Individual Differences in Second- Language Learning. New York: Arnold

Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.