As I mentioned in the previous post, I have asked the attendees to my workshop at ELTA Rhine to participate in a short survey to help define the issues for the session. Unfortunately, I won't be able to deal with everything in the time, so I've decided to address a few of the issues here.
Responses to the question, "What do you like/dislike about teaching Business English?"
"I
don't like the irregular attendance and sometimes the lack of motivation."
"If
the company pays for it, participants don´t work hard enough."
We've all been there and I think we can all sympathize with trying to force feed a group of learners who are either not there... or aren't interested. I distinguish between motivation and dedication - motivation being the will, and dedication being the effort. Let's deal with motivation first.
There are many articles and studies on motivation, but I try to keep it simple. Motivation generally followed expected utility - the amount of value they will gain from learning the language. Highly motivated learners generally have a clear picture of how the language will help their jobs, lives, etc. Lower motivated learners cannot usually describe how or why English will help them. This is typically aligned with their goals.
I can help, but I cannot give them motivation. I
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