Abstract

Motivation has always been an important aspect when it comes to teaching and learning environments. Motivation has many beneficial aspects for learners when incorporated properly. These benefits such as improving performance, more participation, and being able to retain the information both are positive results as of effective motivation. There has been research conducted that shows that when people are engaged in behaviors that help to activate the brain, they then develop and interest for it leading them to continue to search for information on their own (Renninger & Hidi, 2015). The case study that I have chosen examines the improvements of EFL speaking after attempted of being motivated through the use of an additional support tool called ezTranslate. This study focuses on student’s familiarity with authentic context and how it motivates them to speak.

Keywords: motivation improvement, learning, authentic audiences, higher education, university, k12

Literature Review and Key Implications

It has been said that in order for instruction to be produced with quality and enjoyable to the learners, the instructional designers need to be skilled in motivational design. Motivation is also one of the factors that help to influence Human Performance therefore it is extremely important that instructional designers understand this. Wlodkowski’s Time Continuum Model identifies different periods with tactics to use when motivation is crucial. John Keller developed the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) model, a set of principles designed to help promote motivation amongst learners. These two models are both important because it allows the designers to not be limited to specific motivational characteristics (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018).

Case Overview

The case that I have chosen answers and demonstrates many of the set of principles that help to improve motivation. The EFL learning program created an app called ezTranslate for university students who were trying to learn English. The app allowed the students at the university to walk around campus in various authentic areas such as the café and the library where they could learn English. The first experiment was conducted in Tawain at the university, where 80 students who were first-year students at the university. The student’s ages ranged from 20-21 and these students were all enrolled in the same specific course. The study was conducted during one semester of the school year. The students partaking in the study were required to download an app where they must complete some assignments for the course (Thi-Huyen,Wu-Yuin, Xuan-Lam & Xuan-Lam, 2018). The students had two different phases that they had to complete. The instructors did give the students a tour of the app as well as how to operate it. The second part of the study was experiment two where 36 students at the same university who were interested in using the app but not students who participated in experiment one. The students in experiment two were both undergraduate and graduate students so their ages ranged anywhere from 20-27. The students in experiment two could use the ezTranslate app whenever they wanted to as they did not have any required assignments to be completed on the app. The purpose of the experiments was to determine how the ezTranslate app played a part in motivating the students to use authentic context.

Case Analysis

 

Summary

The results of the case study showed that

References

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2018). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and

Technology (4th ed.). New York: Pearson Education.

Renninger, K. A., & Hidi, S. (2015). The power of interest for motivation and engagement.

Routledge.

Thi-Huyen Nguyen, Wu-Yuin Hwang, Xuan-Lam Pham, & Zhao-Heng Ma. (2018). User

Oriented EFL Speaking through Application and Exercise: Instant Speech Translation

and Shadowing in Authentic Context. Journal of Educational Technology &

Society, 21(4), 129–142.