motivating classroom environment

CHAPTER 43 CREATING A MOTIVATING CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT ZOLTÁN DÖRNYEI The University of Nottingham, UK ABSTRACT This chapter addresses the complex question of what makes a classroom environment motivating. It will be argued that in order to understand the psychological tapestry of classroom life, we need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach and draw on research findings from a number of different areas within the social sciences, such as group dynamics, motivational psychology, educational studies, and second language research. The assumption underlying this chapter is that the motivating character of the learning context can be enhanced through conscious intervention by the language teacher, and accordingly the main facets of the environment will be discussed with such a proactive and practical objective in mind. Key concepts to be addressed include group cohesiveness and interpersonal relations, group norms and student roles, the teacher’s leadership styles, and the process of facilitation, as well as the main phases of a proactive, motivational teaching practice within a process-oriented framework. Researchers analyzing the effectiveness of second language (L2) education usually focus on issues such as the quality and quantity of L2 input, the nature of the language learning tasks, and the teaching methodology applied, as well as various learner traits and strategies. These are undoubtedly central factors in L2 learning, and they significantly determine the effectiveness of the process, particularly in the short run. If, however, we consider learning achievement from a longer-term perspective, other aspects of the classroom experience, such as a motivating classroom climate, will also gain increasing importance. Wlodkowski (1986) points out that although boring lessons can be very unpleasant and sometimes excruciatingly painful, boredom itself does not seem to affect the short-term effectiveness of learning. After all, much of what many of us currently know has been mastered while being exposed to some uninspiring presentation or dull practice sequence. Yet, no one would question that attempts to eliminate boredom from the classroom should be high on every teacher’s agenda. Why is that? What is the significance of trying to create a more pleasant classroom environment? The basic assumption underlying this chapter is that long-term, sustained learning—such as the acquisition of an L2—cannot take place unless the educational context provides, in addition to cognitively adequate instructional practices, sufficient inspiration and enjoyment to build up continuing motivation in the learners. Boring but systematic teaching can be effective in producing, for example, good test results, but rarely does it inspire a lifelong commitment to the subject Dörnyei 720 matter. This chapter will focus on how to generate this additional inspiration, that is, how to create a motivating classroom environment. The characteristics of the learning context can be studied from a number of different perspectives. In educational psychology there has been an established line of research focusing on a multidimensional concept describing the psychological climate of the learning context, termed the classroom environment (cf. Fraser & Walberg, 1991). Educational researchers have also focused on aspects of classroom management as an antecedent of the overall classroom climate (e.g., Jones & Jones, 2000). Adopting a different perspective to describe classroom reality, social psychologists have looked at the dynamics of the learner group as part of the vivid discipline of group dynamics (e.g., Schmuck & Schmuck, 2001). Motivational psychologists have taken yet another approach by focusing on the motivational teaching practices and strategies employed in the classroom (for example, Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). While all these lines of investigation represent slightly different priorities and research paradigms, in the end they concern the same larger picture and therefore show a considerable overlap. In the following overview, I will synthesize the various approaches by focusing on the different psychological processes that underlie and shape classroom life. TOWARD A COHESIVE LEARNER GROUP One of the most salient features of the classroom environment is the quality of the relationships between the class members. The quality of teaching and learning is entirely different depending on whether the classroom is characterized by a climate of trust and support or by a competitive, cutthroat atmosphere. If learners form cliques and subgroups that are hostile to each other and resist any cooperation, the overall climate will be stressful for teachers and students alike, and learning effectiveness is likely to plummet. How do such negative relationship patterns develop? And, once established, how can they be changed? These questions have been studied extensively within the field of group dynamics (for a review, see Forsyth, 1999), and recent work on the topic in the L2 field has produced detailed recommendations on how to develop cohesiveness in the language classroom (e.g., Dörnyei & Malderez, 1999; Dörnyei & Murphey, 2003; Ehrman & Dörnyei, 1998; Senior, 1997, 2002). Intermember relations within a group are of two basic types: attraction and acceptance. Attraction involves an initial instinctive appeal, caused by factors such as physical attractiveness, perceived competence, and similarities in attitudes, personality, hobbies, living conditions, etc. An important tenet in group dynamics is that despite their initial impact, these factors are usually of little importance for the group in the long run, and group development can result in strong cohesiveness among members regardless of, or even in spite of, the initial intermember likes and dislikes. In a “healthy group,” initial attraction bonds are gradually replaced by a deeper and steadier type of interpersonal relationship, acceptance. Acceptance involves a feeling toward another person which is non-evaluative in nature, has nothing to do with likes and dislikes, but entails an unconditional positive regard toward the individual (Rogers, 1983), acknowledging the person as a complex human being with many (possibly conflicting) values and imperfections. One of the most important characteristics of a good group is the emergence of a high level of acceptance between members that powerful enough to override even Creating a Motivating Classroom Environment 721 negative feelings between some. This accepting climate, then, forms the basis of a more general feature of the group, group cohesiveness. Group cohesiveness refers to the closeness and “we” feeling of a group, that is, the internal gelling force that keeps the group together. In certain groups it can be very strong, which is well illustrated by reunion parties held even several decades after the closure of the group. Cohesiveness is, obviously, built on intermember acceptance, but it also involves two other factors that contribute to the group’s internal binding force: the members’ commitment to the task/purpose of the group and group pride, the latter referring to the prestige of group membership (cf., elite clubs). How can we promote acceptance and cohesiveness? There are a variety of methods, and from an L2 teaching perspective, Dörnyei and Murphey (2003) list the following main factors: 1. Learning about each other: This is the most crucial and general factor fos- tering intermember relationships, involving the students’ sharing genuine personal information with each other. Acceptance simply does not occur without knowing the other person well enough—enemy images or a lack of tolerance very often stem from insufficient knowledge about the other party. 2. Proximity, contact, and interaction: Proximity refers to the physical distan- ce between people, contact to situations where learners can meet and com- municate spontaneously, and interaction to special contact situations in which the behavior of each person influences the others’. These three fac- tors are effective natural gelling agents, which highlight the importance of classroom issues such as the seating plan, small group work, and indepen- dent student projects. 3. Difficult admission: This explains why exclusive club membership is usual- ly valued very highly, and the same principle is intuitively acted upon in the various initiation ceremonies for societies, teams, or military groups. 4. Shared group history: The amount of time people have spent together and “Remember when we…” statements usually have a strong bonding effect. 5. The rewarding nature of group activities: Rewards may involve the joy of performing the activities, approval of the goals, success in achieving these goals, and personal benefits (such as grades or prizes). 6. Group legend: Successful groups often create a kind of group mythology that includes giving the group a name, inventing special group characteris- tics (for example, dress code), and group rituals, as well as creating group mottoes, logos, and other symbols such as flags or coats of arms. 7. Public commitment to the group: Group agreements and contracts as to common goals and rules are types of such public commitment, and wearing school colors or t-shirts is another way of achieving this. 8. Investing in the group: When members spend a considerable amount of ti- me and effort contributing to the group goals, this increases their commit- ment toward these goals. That is, psychological membership correlates with the actual acts of membership. 9. Extracurricular activities: These represent powerful experiences—indeed, one successful program is often enough to “make” the group, partly becau- Dörnyei 722 se during such outings students lower their “school filter” and relate to each other as “civilians” rather than students. This positive experience will then prevail in their memory, adding a fresh and real feel to their school rela- tionships. 10. Cooperation toward common goals: Superordinate goals that require the co- operation of everybody to achieve them have been found to be the most effective means of bringing together even openly hostile parties. 11. Intergroup competition (that is, games in which small groups compete with each other within a class): These can be seen as a type of powerful collabo- ration in which people unite in an effort to win. You may want to group students together who would not normally make friends easily, and mix up the subteams regularly. 12. Defining the group against another: Emphasizing the discrimination between “us” and “them” is a powerful but obviously dangerous aspect of cohesiveness. While stirring up emotions against an outgroup in order to strengthen ingroup ties is definitely to be avoided, it might be OK to occa- sionally allow students to reflect on how special their class and the time they spend together might be, relative to other groups. 13. Joint hardship and common threat: Strangely enough, going through some difficulty or calamity together (for example, carrying out some tough phy- sical task together or being in a common predicament) has a beneficial group effect. 14. Teacher’s role modeling: Friendly and supportive behavior by the teacher is infectious, and students are likely to follow suit. TOWARD A PRODUCTIVE NORM AND ROLE SYSTEM IN THE CLASSROOM When people are together, in any function and context, they usually follow certain rules and routines that help to prevent chaos and allow everybody to go about their business as effectively as possible. Some of these rules are general and apply to everybody, in which case we can speak about group norms. Some others, however, are specific to certain people who fulfill specialized functions, in which case they are associated with group roles. Group Norms In educational settings we find many classroom norms that are explicitly imposed by the teacher or mandated by the school. However, the majority of the norms that govern our everyday life are not so explicitly formulated, and yet they are there, implicitly. Many of these implicit norms evolve spontaneously and unconsciously during the interactions of the group members, for example, by copying certain behaviors of some influential member or the leader. These behaviors then become solidified into norms, and these “unofficial” norms can actually be more powerful than their official counterparts. The significance of classroom norms, whether official or unofficial in their origin, lies in the fact that they can considerably enhance or decrease students’ academic achievement and work morale. In many contemporary classrooms, for example, we come across the norm of mediocrity that Creating a Motivating Classroom Environment 723 refers to the peer pressure put on students not to excel or else they will be called names such as “nerd”, “swot”, “brain”, and so on. One norm that is particularly important to language learning situations is the norm of tolerance. The language classroom is an inherently face-threatening environment because learners are required to take continuous risks as they need to communicate using a severely restricted language code. An established norm of tolerance ensures that students will not be embarrassed or criticized if they make a mistake and, more generally, that mistakes are seen and welcomed as a natural part of learning. How can we make sure that the norms in our classroom promote rather than hinder learning? The key issue is that real group norms are inherently social products, and in order for a norm to be long-lasting and constructive, it needs to be explicitly discussed and accepted as right and proper. Therefore, Dörnyei and Malderez (1997) have proposed that it is beneficial to include an explicit norm- building procedure early in the group’s life. They suggest formulating potential norms, justifying their purpose in order to enlist support for them, having them discussed by the whole group, and finally agreeing on a mutually accepted set of class rules, with the consequences for violating them also specified. These class rules can then be displayed on a wall chart. Our norm-building effort will really pay off when someone breaks the norms, for example, by misbehaving or not doing something expected. It has been observed that the more time we spend setting, negotiating, and modeling the norms, the fewer people will go astray. And when they do, it is usually the group that brings them back in line. Having the group on your side in coping with deviations and maintaining discipline is a major help: members usually bring to bear considerable group pressure on errant members and enforce conformity with the group norms. Group Roles Role as a technical term originally comes from sociology and refers to the shared expectation of how an individual should behave. Roles describe the norms that go with a particular position or function, specifying what people are supposed to do. There is a general agreement that roles are of great importance with regard to the life and productivity of the group: if students are cast in the right role, they will become useful members of the team, they will perform necessary and complementary functions, and at the same time they will be satisfied with their self-image and contribution. However, an inappropriate role can lead to personal conflict and will work against the cohesiveness and effectiveness of the group. Thus, a highly performing class group will display a balanced set of complementary and constructive student roles. Although listing all the possible roles is impossible (partly because some of them are specific to a particular group’s unique composition or task), some typical examples include the leader, the organizer, the initiator, the energizer, the harmonizer, the information-seeker, the complainer, the scapegoat, the pessimist, the rebel, the clown, and the outcast. How do these roles emerge? They may evolve naturally, in which case it is to some extent a question of luck whether the emerged roles add up to a balanced and functional tapestry. Alternatively, by their own communications or through using certain teaching structures, teachers might encourage students to explore and assume different roles and adopt the ones that suit Dörnyei 724 them best for strategies and activities. The most subtle way of encouraging role taking is to notice and reinforce any tentative role attempts on the students’ part, and sometimes even to highlight possible roles that a particular marginal learner may assume. Alternatively, teachers can make sure that everybody has something to contribute by assigning specific roles for an activity, such as chair, time-keeper, task-initiator, clarifier, provocateur, synthesizer, checker, and secretary (Cohen, 1994; Dörnyei & Murphey, 2003). Having explicitly marked roles in the lessons has the further advantage that teachers can prepare the students to perform these roles effectively, including providing the specific language routines that typically accompany a role. TOWARD AN OPTIMAL LEADERSHIP STYLE Language teachers are by definition group leaders and as such they determine every facet of classroom life. The study of various leadership styles and their impact has a vast literature, but all the different accounts agree on one thing: leadership matters. As Hook and Vass (2000) succinctly put it, “Leadership is the fabled elixir. It can turn failing schools into centers of excellence … It is the process by which you allow your students to become winners” (p. 5). The study of group leadership goes back to a classic study more than 60 years ago. Working with American children in a summer camp, Lewin and his colleagues (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) were interested to find out how the participants would react to three very different group leadership styles: 1. Autocratic (or authoritarian) leadership, which maintains complete control over the group 2. Democratic leadership, where the leader tries to share some of the leadership functions with the members by involving them in decision- making about their own functioning 3. Laissez-faire leadership, where the teacher performs very little leadership behavior at all The results were striking. Of the three leadership types, the laissez-faire style produced the least desirable outcomes: the psychological absence of the leader retarded the process of forming a group structure, and consequently the children under this condition were disorganized and frustrated, experienced the most stress, and produced very little work. Autocratic groups were found to be more productive, spending more time on work than democratic ones, but the quality of the products in the democratic groups was judged superior. In addition, it was also observed that whenever the leader left the room, the autocratic groups stopped working whereas the democratic groups carried on. From a group perspective, the most interesting results of the study concerned the comparison of interpersonal relations and group climate in the democratic and autocratic groups. In these respects democratic groups significantly exceeded autocratic groups: the former were characterized by friendlier communication, more group-orientedness, and better member leader relationships, whereas the level of hostility observed in the autocratic groups was 30 times as great as in democratic groups, and aggressiveness was also considerably (eight