Report

Action Research Report



I. Introduction: A brief description of the investigation.

During the first part of the practice in 2nd grade of high school “a” (the observation period) it was notice that the teacher had problems to engage the students with the class. At the beginning it was thought that the methodoly of the teacher was not enough or not good for the students, but aftercontinuing the observation it was clear that the teacher was not the problem, the problem was the motivation of the students beyond the classroom.

Because of what was pretend to study and solve, it was needed the support of the school Councilor because he is very interest in knowing why students are not motivating with learning something, and this can be applied in different classes. At the beginningit was thought that this lack of motivation could be because of two important factors:

- Sociological pattern of the school.

- Economic situation of the students.

After investigating a little more and applying a survey to the students it turns out that the students had a problem with the “rhythm” of the class, and the lack of intrinsic motivation. The student’s did not want to learnEnglish because it was not necessary to learn English for them. They exposed that it wasn’t necessary to their daily lives and they were not interested in learning a second language.

This study pretends to answer two questions:

1. What are some of the factors that might de-motivate students?
2. How can the students' motivation to learn ESL be sustained?I. Action Research Stage I:

a. Classroom context and identification of the problem.

Second grade of high school is a small group of students, they are just 20 and compared with the rest of the classes is one of the smallest groups in the whole school. The classroom context is quite good; the behaviour of the students is not bad, their social situation responds to MiddleHigh Class. Their cultural background is not the best, but it’s possible to work with them.

During the English classes a main problem was identified; the students have no motivation when they are in front of the English class. As it was said at the beginning the first impressions were that the teacher was doing a deficient work and that students got bored during the whole class, because of theactivities, the schedule of the class, etc. But after having more contact with the students they exposed that English was not important for them, because they wanted to study something not related to English, and the language itself was not part of their lives. The important thing about this problem is that it doesn’t involve just the teacher and the school, parents and the whole context isinvolved too.

Here is then the main problem of this study: the main actor that might demotivate students and how can the students' motivation to learn ESL be sustained?


b. Background (Previous research, theoretical assumptions)

Motivation is the key to all learning. The lack of motivation is perhaps the biggest obstacle faced by teachers, counselors, school administrators, and parents. Thisis the case of 2nd grade A of high school in XXXX School. Behavioral problems in the classroom often, or always, seem to be linked to the lack of motivation. The age of the students is going to be a deciding factor for a teacher to teach to a group of people because if a student is motivated enough he/she can accomplish learning of any scale.

To start with this investigation is important toestablish some contents, concept, ideas, etc. about how is to learn a second language for a student. Because we cannot forget that we are developing this study with students that are learning English as a second language for them.

First there is difference that must be established: the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

The intrinsic motivation: the main idea of motivation is to capture the...