In particular, I am interested in the variable of motivation on student outcomes. Over the last 15 years I have noticed that motivation more than anything, is the main variable in school success, and that poor motivation is often linked to Socio Economic Status.
Dear doctor Gould,
You have certainly posed a very interesting question. I have always admired Bernstein's project on the issue , and now your nice question, has broached up the issue from a new perspective. In point of fact, low SES students ,based on what professor Bernstein claims, have a restricted code, a limited language proficiency that is totally different from the standard variety used by the class teacher and the peers from high SES families. Naturally, the first thing to do is to motivate the low SES students to mitigate this hampering barrier. This improves the learners' literacy skills, what Cummins (1980) calls CALP(Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency), which is a prerequisite to basic interpersonal communication skills . Next, Using Zoltan Dornyei's insightful teachings on motivation, we should help learners to take a fresh look at themselves and to improve their L2 selves. To overcome their deficiency syndrome, they should adopt a determined stance to put the socioeconomic gap behind themselves, and for doing this, they need to be assisted by a reflective teacher.
Your humble student,
R. Biria
Hi Dr. Gould;
I would evaluate their Perceptions of Academic Control, teach them strategies that help them to achieve small wins/success, teach self-evaluation strategies, planning, goal setting, metacognitive strategies, and self-regulation approaches.
Some effective self-regulation strategies are mnemonic strategies, concept mapping, questioning the author, question themselves to see how much they understand from the reading, cooperative learning, also use differentiated instruction.
Hope this helps.
Thank you Elvetha. I agree these are key issues. My problem is that the students don't even engage with this type of support because they don't believe anything done at school is of value to them. Nevertheless, your point is valid. Perhaps if we try to do this as early as possible, there might be some success after a period of time.
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