Motivating the Students through Brief DrawingsAbstractThis study presents a detailed report of the project implemented to foster students motivation in English learning, through brief drawing instruction. Based on the assumption that brief drawing can help the students understand teaching materials quickly and easily and thus motivate the students to learn English happily, a twelve-week program was adopted. Data were collected through questionnaires, analysis and discussion of which shows that brief drawing really contributes to students motivation in language learning. However, the program seems to be powerless to a certain number students. Further research is needed for her measures to motivate the learners. ContentsIntroduction1 Problem analysis2 Possible solutions3 Project objective4 Project hypothesis5 Project rationale6 Research design7.1 subjects7.2 Procedure7.3 Principles to follow7.4 Techniques for Data collection7 Project implementation8.1 Demonstrate the pronunciation essentials by brief drawings8.2 Use brief drawings to teach vocabulary8.3 Use brief drawings to teach sentence patterns8.4 Use brief drawings to teach dialogues8 Data analysis9.1 Data from the questionnaire9.2 Data from tests9 Conclusion10 ReferencesAppendix A Questionnaire 1 for problem analysisAppendix B Questionnaire 2 The post-trial questionnaire Motivating the Students through Brief Drawings1. IntroductionAs is commonly accepted, motivation is the key to success, and interest is the best teacher. What the teacher is to do in class is to provide conditions for learning to take place. I am now teaching junior grade one students. After one semester, I found that the classroom atmosphere was getting less and less active. A quite part of students idled in class. They were taking a less active role in classroom activities. A few students even dropped out. Based on some approaches that I have learned form “English Language Teaching Methodology”, and considering the characteristics of my students, I decided to adopt brief drawings in my lessons to motivate the learners, and help them keep up their English learning.2. Problem AnalysisTeaching which appeals to learners needs can facilitate learning. It is necessary to investigate why the students were showing less and less interested, and devoting less and less effort. So interviews were held and questionnaires were issued. It is found that: a. Those poor learners report that, due to their lack of vocabulary， cannot follow the teacher in class, and many times cant complete the tasks.b. Some good students report that vocabulary instruction tends to be so mechanical. And it is this mechanical practice, in which the students were asked to read and re-read, write and re-write the new words and expressions that deprived the students of their motivation.c. Quite a number of students report that they are afraid of being criticized and thus withdraw from classroom activities.d. The teachers methods lack variety. 3. Possible SolutionsTaking the above factors into consideration, the following solutions were proposed:a. Employing interesting brief drawings to help the students understand and learn new knowledge.b. Organizing interesting activities to motivate the students to memorize the words and review the texts.c. Creating the comfortable safe classroom atmosphere and a good teacher-student relationship.d. Employing interesting brief drawings to help the students understand and learn new knowledge.e. Organizing interesting activities to motivate the students to memorize the words and review the texts.f. Creating the comfortable safe classroom atmosphere and a good teacher-student relationship.4. Project ObjectiveThis project is aimed to motivate the students in English learning through the brief drawings.5. Project HypothesesConsidering the age factors of the students, brief drawings can help students understand teaching materials quickly and easily and thus motivate the students to learn English happily.6. Project RationaleAccording to Williams and Robert Burden, motivation refers to “a state of longitude and emotional arousal which leads to a conscious decision to act, and which gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and physical effort in order to attain a previously set goal.” Motivation is one of the most important factors in learning a foreign language. As Darwin said “Just as eating without liking does harm to ones health, learning without liking harms memory and retains nothing it takes in.” Former experiments show that among the factors contributing to success of learners, motivation accounts for about 35%. Psychological studies indicated that human beings mainly depend on eyes and ears to obtain information. Experiments indicate that the information received by ear will remain 60% in memory after 3 hours and only 40% after 3 days, while the information obtained both by ear and eye will remain 90% in memory after 3 hours and still 75% after 3 days. Another study indicated that the development of humans ideation is a process from thinking in images to abstraction. The teenagers in middle school have developed thinking more in images than in abstraction. Application of brief drawings in English teaching will create language circumstances for students and mobilize their enthusiasm in thinking in images, for the abstract language materials to turn into concrete images. Hence the brief drawings are suitable for the psychological development of teenagers. It is not only a better way to motivate the students, but also helpful to their memory. 7. Research Design7.1 SubjectsFor this research, I chose the two classes of my students as subjects, one as the Experimental Group, the other as the Control Group. The experimental and control groups were randomly selected by drawing lots. Throughout the project, the Experimental Group will receive special designed brief drawing instruction, while the control group goes on with its routine instruction. 7.2 ProcedureThis project lasted two months from March to May. 7.3 Principles to followa. Accord the students interest and practicability with the contents of the teaching materials and the age of the students.b. Adapt the brief drawings to students range of knowledge.c. Create a good teacher-student relationship, motivate and encourage them without forcing.d. Provide a stress-free and learner-centered environment.7.4 Techniques for Data CollectionDuring this research two techniques were adopted, namely questionnaire and test. To gather information for the design of the research and to test whether the research is effective, two questionnaires will be issued, one at the beginning of the research and the other at the end. Two tests will be included (one as the pretest, the other as the post test for comparison) to test the co-efficiency between motivation and school recording.8. Project Implementation8.1 Demonstrate the pronunciation essentials by brief drawingsThe students always feel dull and difficult when they first learn the phonetic symbols. This time, I gave students some example of antithesis, and let them realize the characteristic of the pronunciations. Example 1: Use a pair of profiles on blackboard to demonstrate the shape of the mouth when rpouncing m and n.From the profiles the students can see clearly how m and n is produced, which saves much effort on the part of the teacher to explain.Example 2: Many students sound v as w. A pair of profiles on blackboard will help them distinguish between v and w.8.2 Use brief drawings to teach vocabularyFor the students of the first year, the biggest problem is vocabulary. Teaching vocabulary with brief drawings can motivate students and make them learn English with interest. 8.2.1 Use brief drawings to present vocabularyExample 1: When teaching “ mouse” and “elephant”, I drew on the blackboard the outline of the two animals like the following Then I pointed to the drawings and asked them what they are. In this way, I presented “mouse” and “elephant”, without drawing upon English explanation or Chinese translation. And this helps students acquire the vocabulary learning strategy of imaging. fat thinExample 2: For words like “fat” and “thin”, it is also very convenient to use sketches. First, I asked the students to draw in their paper the images of a fat man and a thin man. Then I selected one of the best drawings from the students to present on the blackboard. Then we talked about the images of the two men. The student said that in the word “fat” is the letter “a”, which like a man with big belly, while there is the letter “i” in the middle of the word “thin”, which looks like a slim person.The wonderful idea of this student attracted others greatly. All the students smiled and memorized the words in a relaxed atmosphere.8.2.2 Use brief drawings in vocabulary revisionTo revise the words about colors, a game was designed with brief drawings. In class, the students were divided into 2 groups, a boy group and a girl group, each group telling the teacher the things they want. The students were asked first to draw what they want in colors and then present them to the class. One of them was asked to report according to the pictures like the following: I like a red apple / a yellow pear / a white egg / a brown cake / a green ruler / a blue book / a black pen / an orange pencil-box 8.2.3 Use brief drawings to help distinguish conceptsStudents in the junior middle school often confuse meanings of some words，for example prepositions of place. With the brief drawings, the meaning will be easy to express. Example 1: When prepositions “in”, “on”, “under” and “by” were taught, brief drawings were applied. The following drawing clearly demonstrated the concept of each preposition.Example 2: For another example, the students tend to be confused about “in front of “ and “in the front of”. So in classroom instruction, I used brief drawings to demonstrate their differences.From the drawings the students found that the boy is in front of the car. That is very danger, so the driver, who is in the front of the car, is criticizing him. The differences between the two phrases are clearly demonstrated.Example 3: Chinese students usually feel puzzled about “on”, “over” and “above”. In classroom instruction, I first drew three pictures on the blackboard. Then asked the students to observe the three pictures and find what are the differences. Then I gave them three sentences without preposition and asked them to complete the blanket with the words “on”, “over” and “above”.There is a bridge ( ) the river. (over)There is a cup ( ) the desk. (on)There is a bird ( ) the house. (above)When the students had finished, I asked a student who did correctly to tell the class why he filled in the answers. The student explained his thinking: “The bridge is over the river, because the bridge is over the water; the cup is on the desk and the cup touches the desk; the bird is flying over the house but not stop on it, so the bird is above the house.”8.3 Use brief drawings to teach sentence patternsEnglish is full of sentence patterns. If the students only look at the book and read the sentences after the teacher, which is what I used to do, they can hardly be motivated and the structures will be difficult to master. When the brief drawings were applied in sentence-patterns instruction, the situation was changed.Example: When teaching the JEFC Book 1 L21, I adopted the brief drawing approach to explain the new sentence patterns.First several brief drawings were drawn on the blackboard. Then the students listened while looking at the drawings.“Who is this?”“Hes Li Lei.”“How old is he?”“He is twelve.”After listening for several times, the students were invited to speak aloud themselves according to the drawings. All the students could concentrate their attention in class and everyone spoke boldly. Within only several minutes, all the students were able to utter these sentence partners, including the worst students.8.4 Use brief drawings to teach dialoguesAlmost every unit of the JEFC Book 1 has a dialog, and every dialog is designed in a small scene. Integrating the dialog with the brief drawings will produce a wonderful effect.Example: During the research, when teaching L46, I designed 4 brief drawings, each of which includes relevant information. Looking at these drawings, the students could easily associate the contents of the dialogue and make dialogues freely.9. Data AnalysisIn order to assess the effectiveness of the above-mentioned solutions, data were gathered mainly from two sources: two questionnaires and two tests at different times, which will be analyzed respectively in this section. 9.1 Data from the questionnaireTwo questionnaires were issued in this research, one at the beginning of the project, the other at the finish of the project. Questionnaire II was designed partly based on questionnaire I so that comparisons could be made to see the improvement after the implementation.9.1.1 Question 1: The attitude towards the English lesson.In both questionnaires, the students were requested to answer questions concerning their interest in English lessons. It is found that 15% of them were afraid of English before the implementation of the research, while only 3% of them had the same idea after it. From Table 1, we can see more clearly that the students feeling changed after the application of the new designed learning procedures. Table 1-comparison of students interest in learning English （要置于表格上面）Degree of interestLike a lotlikeLike a littleNot like Before the research5%44%35%15%After the research26%63%7%3%Figure 1- comparison of students interest in learning EnglishNote: 1= like a lot 2= like 3= like a little 4= not likeFrom Figure 1, we can see 89% of the subjects liked learning English. The number of the students who were interested in English increased by 40%. This to a certain extent implies that brief drawings instruction in vocabulary teaching really contributed to students motivation and confidence.9.1.2 Question 2: Effectiveness of brief drawing in digestion of English lesson This question is to check if the brief drawings are helpful to the students in learning English.Figure 2-Effectiveness of brief drawing in digestion of English lesson Note: 1= excellent 2= good 3= fair 4= badFrom Figure 2, it can be seen that the brief drawing instruction is very helpful to the students. The number of the students who report to be able to digest what they have learnt in English lesson in class has distinctly increased, from 4 and 8 to 8 and 16. Only a small number of students report they cannot digest the contents of lessons. This indicates the effectiveness of the solution. In order to obtain more detailed data, I sum up the students comments on the helpfulness of the brief drawings. It is summarized in the following pie chart to show the effectiveness:Pie chart 1- students attitudes on the functions of brief drawingsFrom the above pie chart, it can be concluded that most of the students have positive attitudes towards games and activities. There is none who thinks the brief drawings is “no useful at all”. This result tallies with my original assumption.9.2 Data from Tests Two tests were administered in both classes, one at the beginning of the program, the other at the end, with the same format. The means of the two tests in the two classes were calculated and listed in the following table: Table 2-Means of tests before research objectclassRate of passing（%）Rate of Excellence（%）Rate of no passing（%）Control Group834317Experimental Group92648Table 3-Means of tests after research objectclassRate of passing（%）Rate of Excellence（%）Rate of no passing（%）Control Group907010Experimental Group886112The above tables show clearly that the students have been making steady progress during the action research. In the Experimental Group, the rate of passing went steadily up from 83% to 90% and the rate of excellence increased sharply by 27%. While Control Group, which had been relatively better than the Experimental Group, had not been making progress at all and left behind.10ConclusionThis paper is the result of the action I conducted in April 2001, which aimed at motivating the students through brief drawings(1)， which was assumed to be capable of cultivating motivation in middle school learners. (2) In order to solve the identified problem, several solutions were implemented during the action research.(3) Data collected from questionnaires and examination shows that brief drawings can help motivate middle school learners in the learning of vocabulary, dialogue, even concepts, which contributes to the students academic record.(4) Of course there are some problems with it. Still 1 student in my sisters class thinks they dont like learning English.(5) I shall help her to analyze the problem further using the scientific methods and design some new tasks to solve the problem.(6)References李洪玉、何一粟，學(xué)習(xí)動力，武漢：湖北教育出版社，1999年。陰國恩、李洪玉，非智力因素及其培養(yǎng)，杭州：浙江人民出版社，1998年。章志光譯，課堂教育心理學(xué)，林格倫著，昆明：云南人民出版社， 1983年。Williams, M. & Burden, R. 1997. Psychology for Language Teachers: a Social Constructive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Appendix A：Questionnaire One for Problem analysis1. 你喜歡英語課嗎？A. 非常喜歡 B. 比較喜歡 C. 一般 D.不喜歡 E. 一點也不喜歡2 你不喜歡英語的主要原因是：A. 詞匯不熟 B. 語法太難 C. 內(nèi)容枯燥 D. 形式死板 E.其它3你能當(dāng)堂消化英語課內(nèi)容嗎？A. 總是能 B. 有時能 C. 一般 D. 不太能 E.完全不能4你希望老師給你什么幫助？A. 愉悅的課堂氣氛 B. 輕松學(xué)知識 C. 改變聽學(xué)形式 D. 學(xué)英語的技巧 E.其它Appendix B： Questionnaire Two for Problem analysis1. 經(jīng)過這段時間學(xué)習(xí)，你喜歡英語課了嗎？A. 非常喜歡 B. 比較喜歡 C. 一般 D.不喜歡 E. 一點也不喜歡2你認為你的英語水平有提高嗎？A. 有很大提高 B. 有一些提高 C. 有一點提高 D. 提高不大 E. 沒有提高3你能當(dāng)堂消化英語課內(nèi)容嗎？B. 總是能 B. 有時能 C. 一般 D. 不太能 E.完全不能4. 你認為簡筆畫對你英語學(xué)習(xí)有幫助嗎？A. 很有幫助 B. 有一些幫助 C. 有一點幫助 D. 幫助不大E. 沒有幫助15