Motivation: Issues and Implications for the Classroom

This paper explores the nature of student motivation and subsequent implications for teaching. The literature on the subject of motivation is presented and discussed from the perspective of the behaviorist, the cognitive theorist and the humanist. From this survey of the literature three common themes emerge that are useful in working with student motivation. They are the student\u27s motivation to feel success, to feel affiliation and to find meaning. In describing the teacher\u27s role in fostering motivation in these areas a variety of teaching methods and techniques are presented. Among these are effective objective setting and cooperative learning. These methods are explored plus the role of teacher attitudes and awareness in encouraging intrinsic motivation to learn. How these methods and attitudes withstood the test of a year teaching high school Spanish is described in the final chapter