Intrinsic motivation plays a very important role in achieving your goals, but what if your students lack this type of motivation? How can you help them find a motivation when it comes to learning languages?
It all starts by sparkling curiosity. It starts with noticing the languages around us. They might even be in your own home. Think of all the objects that were imported and you bought in the store, or maybe you have an object or a toy that a relative brought to your house from another country. There is always a story behind it or a label.
Do the following exercise with your students: ask your students to look around and find such objects in their homes. Do they have labels with other languages on them, or perhaps the instructions are in a different language? Have them explore these.
Being aware that there is a broader world beyond your students' familiar surroundings is the first step towards becoming curious about the world and about other languages. The world is large and interesting, and there is a lot to learn out there.
I told a personal story when I did this exercise with my students.
I was born and raised in Bulgaria, a country in Southeastern Europe. It was Communism back then and traveling outside of the country, especially to the West, was rare and nearly impossible. Back then the world was divided in two by the Berlin Wall. On the West there were West Germany, Western Europe and America, the capitalist countries, while on the East there were East Germany, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China- the communist countries. The Cold War was in a full swing and it was very difficult to travel to the West. Nevertheless, many people aspired to do so and were very curious about what life was like on the other side.
In later years my father told me that when he and my mom were students at the University of Russe in Bulgaria, they and their friends often listened to the Beatles and to rock and roll music on the radio Free Europe, which was of course illegal. Western music was considered western propaganda and thus forbidden, but the students loved to listen and to dance to it in secret.
My parents met at the university. They both studied engineering and became engineers later on. When I was a child, I remember, they both had the opportunities to travel abroad for their jobs, which at the time was a very big deal. My father travelled once to East Germany and once to Yugoslavia, while my mother was given the opportunity to traveled to West Germany. It must have been circa 1981-1982 , because my mom told me that she was two months pregnant with my sister at the time she travelled to West Germany (see the photo below of my mom, the only woman in the group of twelve engineers and an interpreter, representatives of different regions of Bulgaria, who went to explore the agricultural technology machines used in West Germany- she represented our county).
I remember this trip very clearly, because my father had to take care of me during the two weeks she was away. I remember one night he put me to bed and quietly left the apartment, where we lived. He thought I was asleep. I knew that he was going to the airport to pick up my mom. I pretended to be asleep, but could barely wait to see my mom. On the next morning I was super excited to see her back home and to find the many presents that she has brought back for me from the trip. There was a very cute red basket, some animal toys, a little tea set. These toys were different from the ones we could find in the toy store back then, because we were not importing stuff from the West.
She also brought home a big thick magazine, a Neckermann. Below is its cover page from the 1981 edition that I remember so fondly. The pages of this catalogue, one of the most successful mail order companies in Europe at the time, gave me a glance at what life was like in the West.
In later years my mom told me that it was forbidden to import any kind of goods from the West, especially magazines, because they were considered a Western propaganda, but somehow she managed to hide the magazine in her luggage and bring it home.
I grew up frequently looking at the pages of the magazine, exploring them and imagining how one day I would travel there and see what life over there was like for real. The catalogue had everything- from clothes and food to furniture and tools. It had over a thousand pages and it had writings in German, numbers and prices. I vividly remember some of the models in fashion poses. One of them specifically reminded me of my mom, since she had the same haircut (the first brunette on the top of the page below).
I became very interested in German. I was in 5th grade and I imagined that if I spent my whole summer reading the magazine, I would become proficient in German and one day would visit West Germany. I was eager to learn and in my first year in Middle school I signed up to take German classes.
I think this experience changed my life forever and was the motivator for me to learn languages. I am proud to share that now I consider myself a polyglot- a person who knows and is able to use several languages. This aspiration became my reality. I am proficient in four languages including my native Bulgarian (a Slavic language), French, English and Spanish. I became a world language teacher and I have been teaching since 2001 in both Bulgaria and in the U.S. in Michigan, where I currently reside.
I have gained so much from learning and teaching languages. I dream big and I know that I can accomplish those dreams, as long as I put my energy and efforts into my goals, like the goal I had that summer, when I was in 5th grade- to learn a new language and travel to the West. These two goals were a gift for me. I have become much more self aware and have gained so many different perspectives now after having lived on two continents. I feel inspired and I tell my students that the world is broad, interesting and full of wonders. It is up to them to explore what it has in store.
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