Some introductory thoughts...

When we think about success in learning or in this case in acquiring a second language, we need to take into consideration many details.
For example:
The characteristics and abilities of the teacher, the methodology, the materials used during the lesson, the context in which a class is develop and of course, very important are the learner's characteristics.
If we think deeper about learners we need to take into consideration the view that teachers in general have about them nowadays. The learner is seen as a person with certain characteristics, for instance having different learner ; the learner has a historical background that needs to be considered at the moment of teaching. He also depends on a context in which he is being formed, etc.
All this is in contrast to the old view that society had about students, they were seen as "empty vessels" that needed to be filled with contexts by the teachers who were supposed to be the only experts about the subjects. There was no espace for learner's opinions or discussions.
Now thanks to the different view that we have about our students we can assume that their characteristics influence really deeply in the success of language acquisition and learning.
First of all we will divide the characteristics into two:
The first classification has to do with those characteristics that are outside the teacher's control:

• Age and Gender:

This characteristic is refered to the traditional view that "the younger we start to learn a second language, the better chance for success we have". This has to do with the "critical period" in which a person needs to learn a language before puberty to succed.

• Language Aptitude

This point, according to me is one of the most important points of all. Language aptitude is also refered as "ability", " feel", "knack" for languages. it is for example when one person is learning a second languegae and he or she immediately shows a big progress in the acquisition of the language. he or she shows a great ability when acquiring the sounds and grammar of the language they are learning. This means that a person with language ability can acquire languages very "easily". On the other hand a person who lacks of language aptitude will learn the language but in a longer period or it will be more difficult for him to identify patterns or sounds by him self; he will need to be more persistent .

• Motivation

When we talk about motivation we have to take into consideration its importance. Without motivation nothing would really happen. If we think about this we get to the conclusion that it is true. How can you possibly learn something if you are not motivated? For example my self ,( I always tend to think about my own experience when I give examples) I remember when I was at school I didn't want to learn maths, beacuse it was too boring and I used to think that they were useless ( I still think so) and that I would never use them. So it was very difficult for me to learn maths because of the fact that I wasn't motivated to learn it at all.

It is said that by using the appropriate techniques teachers can change learner's motivation in a positive direction. it is true if we think about the techniques that we can use in the classroom in roder to call the attention of the students, for example using intresting topics, different materials, and of course explaining the students the importance of the subject and it will be useful to learn it for several reasons.

Motivation in Second Language Learning

When we talk about motivation in second language learning we have to think that this motivation is different from other motivations, I mean in other subjects.

When learning a second language we do not only learn the language it self we also learn about the culture where it is spoken.

" The learning of a foreign language involves far more than simply learning skills, or a system of rules, or a grammar; it involves an alteration in self image, the adoption of new social and cultural behaviours and ways of being, and therefore has a significant impact on the social nature of the learner." (Williams 1994:77)

Motivation and it's phases

Motivation is devided into three phases, because it is not a static process, it is in constant movement or in constant change. The first phase is called "Choice Motivation" it tells us that motivation needs to be generated, this means that it is here when we decide de task we need to acomplish.

The second phase is called "Executive Motivation" it is refered to when we maintain our motivation and protect it from different distractions that may take place during the learning process, such as irrelevant thoughts, etc

The last phase is called "Motivational Retrospection" whichs consists of the evaluation that learners do when they have completed the task, here they realise if the different things they did were correct.

Why Do People Want to Learn a Second Language?

Have you ever thought about why people really want to learn another language? well I've always thought about this and I've realised that we have several reasons, one of this may be related to politics, this has to do with what language is the most important one in the world. It has to do with the necessity of speaking the language that the entire world is speaking in order to be able to comunicate with other people, beacuse of business for example.
another reason I have thought about is the motivation that some people have to know something about a different culture, because they may have friends, or family.

During my research I've found three concepts given by Gardner ( 1985) that explain very clearly the reasons that people may have in order to learn a second language:

"Integrative orientation": which reflects a positive disposition toward the L2 group and the desire to interact with and even become similar to valued members of that comunity.

"Instrumental orientation" where language learning is primarily associated with the potential gains of L2 proficiency, such as getting a better job or a higher salary

"The integrative motive" which is a complex construct made up of three main components
a) integrativeness---> subsuming integrative orientation, interest in foreign languages , and attitudes toward the L2 comunity.
b) attittudes toward the learning situation---> comprising attitudes toward the teacher and the course.
c) motivation---> made of motivational intensity, desire and attitudes towards learning the language.

another reason could be the expectancy of success, this has to do with learner's confidence this means their potential to carry out the tasks they are given.

Another important point is learners' initial beliefs about L2 for example beliefs like the amount of time it will take them to learn a second language. If they think it will take them too long it could affect motivation because obviously they would feel disapointed.

Can we, as teachers, motivate students?

According to our research, there are a lot of techniques that teachers can apply in order to motivate our students, if we think about this we can say that motivate someone is a very difficult tasks.
For example Dornyei (2001) identifies for aspects of motivational teaching practice:

The first one has to do with creating the basic motivational conditions. In order to create this we need to foster a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere in where the students can feel confortable and relaxed in order to low their anxiety. if this happens then they would fell more relaxed and confident in order to participate and not to feel ashamed or embarrased at the moment of producing sentences or utterances in English.
The second aspect is related to generating initial student motivation, this means increasing the learners' expectancy of success or making teaching materials relevant to learners, for example bringing texts that might be interesting for them, music, and of course technology as computers, etc.
A third phase is encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation, this means providing motivational feedback, letting them know their good aspects not only the bad ones, increasing learner satisfaction, offering rewards and grades in a motivating manner.




I also found some information By Barbara Gross Davis, University of California, Berkeley. From Tools for Teaching some strategies I found very interesting as well and that are related to the ones we so above:

Capitalize on students' existing needs. Students learn best when incentives for learning in a classroom satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course. Some of the needs your students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn something in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to perfect skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people.

Make students active participants in learning. Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Passivity dampens students' motivation and curiosity. Pose questions. Don't tell students something when you can ask them. Encourage students to suggest approaches to a problem or to guess the results of an experiment. Use small group work.

Ask students to analyze what makes their classes more or less "motivating." Sass (1989) asks his classes to recall two recent class periods, one in which they were highly motivated and one in which their motivation was low. Each student makes a list of specific aspects of the two classes that influenced his or her level of motivation, and students then meet in small groups to reach consensus on characteristics that contribute to high and low motivation.

Another important issue mentioned here is Incorporating Instructional Behaviors That Motivate Students like:

Hold high but realistic expectations for your students

Help students set achievable goals for themselves

Tell students what they need to do to succeed in your course.

Strengthen students' self-motivation

Avoid creating intense competition among students

Be enthusiastic about your subject

For further information about this discussion please visit http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/motiv.htm

A LITTLE PARENTHESIS

Sometimes I stop and think about my reality I mean the reality of my country. What happens with our schools here in Chile is not something good at all. Many of the schools that we find here have little money and materials to provide to their students. When I say many of the schools in Chile I'm refering to the majority of them. The kind of students that we find in these schools come from a very difficult reality, where we find problems with drugs, delincuency, abuse, violence, etc. So I ask my self how can we as teachers motivate these kind of people? People that don't want to be educated because their interests are so different from the reality of the school that is almost imposible to change their minds. The theory says that we as teachers of English need to formulate our lessons based on subjects that are interesting for the students, but how can we create a good class based on drugs and violence? ( which are the interests of these children)
What if we started talking about planes, business, the world of money , etc. Would they pay attention to us? is this important for them? So What can we do about these people?
The government blames the teachers, they say it is their fault that children do not even know how to read or write but is this right? I don't think so I think this view is so unfari and it is the easy way of seeing how things are. What they don't realize is that the society has a problem not the teachers. The governement insists on creating very small houses in the suburbs to send the poorest people to live there. In some of those houses live 10 people, and we are talking about houses with only one room. So what happens with these people is that the only thing they want to do is to go out in order to escape from these small houses that soffocate anyone. Outside the house what they find are just problems durgs as I mentioned before and violence. They are sent to school, because their parents don't want to have them at home doing nothing and where there is nothing to eat at all. At school the only thing they know to do is nothing not paying attention and of course they take their bad customs to it, they attack teachers and classmates. Their parent don't really care about their education and of course they don't support their children in this process. So I ask the question again, how can we motivate students that don't want to be motivated and taught at all?
I really think theory helps but is not the truth at all.

Learning Styles

When talking about students we need to take into consideration that they all learn in different ways, some of them learn better if they listen to something or some others if they see something. These different ways of learning are called " learning styles".
In this aspect teachers can not really influenciate students, since it has to do with their biological aspects, their genetic aspect.
To understand and classify the learning styles I will give you some charachteristics that some students have:
Those learners who are more concrete-sequential are the ones who check the headings and sub-headings in a text to get an idea of the organization of it. And they get frustrated when they can not find literal answers on the texts.
A student who is more abstract- intuitive skips around the text looking for key words but without a pattern ( actually I think this is my learning style) they also take more clues from the text and when learning they tend to rely on their own experiences in order to learn in a better way.
The global and synthesizing learners my enjoy a summarization task in order to integrate details.

Learners do not only use one of the styles just mentioned, they use or we use one or more depending on the task.