Motivating the student to learn : a real teacher’s challenge

Abstract

Teachers find it difficult to capture their students attention and motivate them to pursue their activities in the classroom. This difficult and complex problem has become, for many of them, a real challenge resulting in fear, worry, preoccupation and great concern that it profoundly affects their self-confidence. Where would the problem be situated? Is it something to do with the learner himself? Or is it because school activity represents only a secondary concern? Or is the problem related to social realities and prevailing values? Or is it simply a problem of pedagogical nature reflecting school failure? Our discussion will consider the problem of poor motivation as primarily an educational problem, with an attempt to answer the following questions: How does unwillingness to learn create a challenge for the teacher and what will embarrass him more when facing unmotivated students? Are there behind reluctance objective reasons or it is simply an indicator of school failure? What are the main factors that make students manifest such a negative attitude? What strategies could better help unlock this uncomfortable situation and have these unmotivated students actively re- engaged in the learning process?