By ISABELITA N. DAROYA
Dagupan City

THE Teacher is the single and most important person in the teaching-learning process while motivation is the single and most important means towards student growth and achievement of goals. Properly motivated, children enjoy growing and moving forward, gaining new skills, abilities, power and knowledge. One half of the teacher’s work is done if her students are properly motivated.

Various theories of motivation have been suggested by psychologists and educators for developing techniques of motivating pupils in the classroom.

Motivation means providing with motive, that is stimulating the “will to learn.” Motivation connotes anything that impels or moves the pupil/student to activity. The term means the purposeful presentation to the pupils of adequate motives together with the necessary guidance and direction in order that the child may evaluate and appreciate worthwhile activities.

It is a process of including motives which will energize learning and behavior. It involves the stimulation of pupils/students to apply themselves willingly to the task of the classroom by making school tasks meaningful and purposeful.

Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation implies that a teacher should do everything within her power to satisfy the lower level needs of students so that they will function more at the higher levels.

A student for instance will learn better if he is physically comfortable, feels safe and relaxed, has a sense of belonging, and experiences self-esteem. Maslow’s list of needs arranged in their hierarchy such as Aesthetic Needs, Desire to Know and Understand, Need for Self-Actualization, Esteem Needs, Love and Belonging Needs, Safety Needs and Physiological Needs.

Learning situations arranged attractively by teachers enable students to select the activities for which they feel personal appeal or value. The self-chosen activity the child elects to perform becomes its own motivation, thereby lessening the teacher’s load. Self-directed behavior of the pupils should be the ultimate goal of motivation.

The success of a teacher in motivating will depend upon his ability to adapt his leadership to the teaching-learning situation. Under some circumstances, the teacher should take positive leadership and show the student/pupils what is to be done and how it is to be done.