What is 'motivation', anyway? I hear it mentioned a lot among my brethren where I teach. This is because our students seem to be seriously lacking in this supposedly-important attribute.

When we, meaning my colleagues and I, refer to 'motivation', we're really talking about several things: attitudes, aspirations, efforts, efficacy, and volition.

Why is lack of 'motivation' a problem in Thailand?

For one thing, Thai students have no volition. They do work only work when told to do so by an authority figure. Students 'setting out on their own' in independent efforts to complete learning tasks is unheard of here. It's no surprise my school's library hardly ever has visitors. Even those who do visit the library are usually there to read the day's newspapers. I only see students in the library when I or a fellow instructor has told them to go there during class time.

Another reason my students have no volition is because they have no aspirations, at least none which involve English. This is understandable. Why would they actually want to learn English? They don't have plans to go to the West anytime soon, so there's no real reason in their minds to exert the effort required to learn it.

Another reason my students don't have volition is because they know they'll be able to graduate without really being proficient in English. At the two jobs I've had so far in Thailand, ALL students passed, no matter if farang teachers passed them or failed them. The students who did fail simply went to administrators who then changed those failing grades to passing grades.

How do we improve motivation here? By improving attitudes and making students aware that they can accomplish lots of tasks without being told to do so. If we convince our students they can succeed by their own efforts, we can help lift them over the ever-present hump, the inferiority complex, that plagues Thai students.

Perhaps volition and aspirations will then come around as well.