GROUP 7

Theories of motivation

1.      From a behavioral perspective, motivation is seen in every matter of fact terms. Driven to acquire positive reinforcement, and driven by previous experiences of reward for behavior we act accordingly to achieve further reinforcement.

2.      In cognitive terms, motivation places much more emphasis on the individual’s decisions.

Six needs undergirding the construct of motivation:

a.       The need for exploration

b.      The need for manipulation

c.       The need for activity

d.      The need for stimulation

e.       The need for knowledge

f.       Finally, the need for ego enhancement

3.      Constructivist view of motivation places even further emphasis on social context as well as individual personal choices. Each person is motivated differently and will therefore act on his or her environment in ways that are unique. But this unique acts are always carried out within a cultural and social milieu and cannot be completely separated from that context.

The need concept of motivation in some ways belongs to all three schools of thought: the fulfillment of needs is rewarding, requires choices, and in many cases must be interpreted in a social context.

Instrumental and integrative orientations

     

      Two different clusters of attitudes divided two basic types of what Gardner and lambert identified as instrumental and integrative orientations to motivation. The instrumental side of the dichotomy referred to acquiring a language as a means for attaining instrumental goals: furthering a career, reading technical material, translation, and so forth. The integrative side described learners who wished to integrate themselves into the culture of the second language group and become involved in social interchange in that group.

  Such variable findings in empirical investigations do not necessarily invalidate the integrative-instrumental construct. They point out once again that there is no single means of learning a second language: some learners in some contexts are more successful in learning a second language if they are integrative oriented and others different contexts benefit from instrumental orientation. The finding also suggest the two orientations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Second language learning is rarely taken up in contexts that are exclusively instrumental or exclusively integrative. Most situations involve a mixture of each orientation. A further perspective on the integrative-instrumental construct may be gained by regarding the two orientations simply as two out of a number of possible orientations.