Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/40

Rh lives in' (Grittner, 1969, p. 36) or to 'the belief that what is learned in school will transfer to situations which the student will later face in life' For short-term, intrinsic motivation, we too often depend on some superficial reward: a 'feeling  of accomplishment' (Stevick, 1959), grades, numbers on a counting device, candies, money, permission to go on to the next frame, and the like.

A more comprehensive view of motivation derives from what we may call Lambert's principle. This principle states that, other things being equal, a language course is effective in proportion to the breadth of its contact with the student's interests, and the depth of its penetration into his emotional life. The conditions that loosen up the atoms, or molecules, or electrons, of the brain so that they become available for rearranging lie outside the strictly linguistic realm. Both the teacher and the materials writer need to be aware of the full range of rewards and incentives that are available to the student:

(1) What needs, and what opportunities does the student have to gain satisfaction from having done something right? What he does may be very small, such as completing one line in a drill, or reciting a sentence out of a dialog, but the materials should