the effects of anticipation rewards on students' motivation in learning grammar

252 Pages·2012·3.27 MB·English

PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA
MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
MENTOURI UNIVERSITY OF CONSTANTINE
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES (ENGLISH)

THE EFFECTS OF ANTICIPATION

REWARDS ON STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION

IN LEARNING GRAMMAR

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of MAGISTER in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching
Option: Language Teaching and Methodology
Presented by: Supervised by:
Meryem GUENDOUZE Pr. Farida ABDERRAHIM

Board of Examiners
Chairman: Pr. Ahmed MOUMENE University of Constantine
Supervisor: Pr. Farida ABDERRAHIM University of Constantine
Member: Dr. Mohamed OUSKOURT University Emir Abdelkader, Constantine
Year 2011-2012
“People do not die when they are buried but they die when they are forgotten.”
To the soul of my brother Moussa,
Rest in Peace.
Dedication

To my dear parents without whom I would not be who I am. I hope they are now
proud of me.
To my husband for all the help and encouragement he provided me with. He is the best
person I have ever met.
To my daughter Malak Errahmane, the source of happiness in my life, for being the
main motivation for accomplishing this work in the last months.
To my sisters: Nadjette, Karima, Sara, Nassima, Fatima, Razika and Zhaira.
To my nieces and nephews, especially Lina, Rayen, kawthar and Mohamed.
To my friends: Lamia, Hasna and Naziha.
To my family.
To everyone I love in my life, I dedicate this work

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Pr. Farida ABDERRAHIM, for
her support, guidance and patience. I thank her for devoting me her knowledge and time;
without her precious advice and understanding, this work would not have been done.
I am also grateful to Pr. Ahmed MOUMENE and Dr. Mohamed OUSKOURT who
have accepted to examine this dissertation.
I would like to thank all the teachers of the Department of English in Mentouri
University, Constantine.
I would, also, like to thank the students of Second Year LMD, University Mentouri,
Constantine, who took part in the main study of this work.
Finally, my thanks go to my dear friend and colleague Naziha Benghomrani for her
supportive assistance.

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Abstract
Teaching grammar, as teaching other modules in English, has become a difficult work
since many teachers of English complain about motivating their students in the class. It has
been noticed that most students are not motivated to learn because they consider the grammar
class as uninteresting it fails to attract their attention. Thus, the question rises here as to what
extent the teacher is able to lower students‟ anxiety in grammar classes and to increase
students‟ motivation in return.
In order to answer the question above, we have assumed that lack of motivation is due
to the lack of rewards in the class. For this reason, the reward system was introduced in
grammar teaching to see to what extent the learning process can be more effective, and thus
students‟ outcomes can be better. This research work aims at explaining how motivation can
be increased through the anticipation of rewards in grammar classes. It studies the effects of
rewards on learners‟ results in Second Year Grammar classes at Mentouri University,
Constantine. In this research, 123 students participated in the main study; they have been
randomly chosen to take part in the experiment. One group was designed as the Control
Group and the two other groups as two experimental groups. Students in the Control Group
have been taught within the usual grammar instruction, while students in the two experimental
groups have been subject to the new reward strategy introduced by the researcher. The fact
that we have selected two experimental groups aims at validating the assumed results of the
experiment.
The researcher has observed the behaviour of the participants in the three groups
during the training period, and after the administration of the post-test, a comparison of the
pre-test results and the post-test results was made in the three groups. In fact, the participants
in the two experimental groups were noticeably different from those in the Control Group. In
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other words, they have become more enthusiastic, more active, and they participate more in
the class. However, in the Control Group, students showed no special development in their
behaviour. In addition to this, the improvement means in the three groups showed that the
marks of the students in the two experimental groups in the post test are much better than
those obtained in the pre-test. However, in the control group; the development of the students‟
marks in the post-test was so tiny and of a little importance. The analysis of the results and the
interpretation of the researcher‟s observations showed how rewards can be very effective in
raising students‟ motivation in grammar classes and in increasing their potential to learn new
grammatical items.

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List of Abbreviations
Adj.: Adjective
Adv.: Adverb
Arti.: Article
B: Behaviour
CG: Control Group
Conj.: Conjunction
D: Determiner
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
E.g.: Example
EXP. G1: The First Experimental Group
EXP. G2: The Second Experimental Group
FL: Foreign Language
F S: Future Simple
LMD: Licence Master Doctorate
N: Noun
N°: Number Note: you have used this abbreviation.
P Condi.: Past Conditional S
P Perf. : Past Perfect
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Pr. Condi. S: Present Conditional Simple
Pr. S: Present Simple
P S: Past Simple
Prep.: Preposition
Pron.: Pronoun
R: Reinforcement
R+: Positive Reinforcement
R-: Negative reinforcement
S: Stimulus / Situation
S-B-R: Stimulus /Behaviour /Reinforcement
V: Verb
%: Percentage

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List of Tables
Page
Table 01: Brown‟s Three Definitions of Motivation………………………...………………...9
Table 02: Teacher‟s Positive versus Negative Behaviour…………………………….....……49
Table 03: Students‟ Age………………………………………………………………...….....63
Table 04: Gender Distribution…………………..………………………………………...….64
Table 05: Frequency of the Grammatical Items……………………………............................65
Table 06: Context and Grammatical Nature of the Deleted Words…………………………..69
Table 07: The Pre-test General Observations ……………………….………………….…....82
Table 08: Achievement in the Pre-test (CG)…………...…………….................................….84
Table 09: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 1)………………………………………………….......85
Table 10: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 2)…………………..…………………………...…..…85
Table 11: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 3)……………………………..….............................…85
Table 12: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 4)………………………..………………………….…86
Table 13: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 5)………………………...………………….……...…86
Table 14: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 6)………………………..……………………….……86
Table 15: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 7)………………………………..….…………………87
Table 16: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 8)…………………………………………………...…87
Table 17: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 9)……………...………………………………………87
Table 18: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 10)……………………..……….……………………..88
Table 19: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 11)………………………………….…………………88
Table 20: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 12)…………………….………………………………88
Table 21: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 13)…………………….………………………………89
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Table 22: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 14)……………………….……………………………89
Table 23: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 15)……………………….……………………………89
Table 24: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 16)…………….………………………………………26
Table 25: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 17)…………….………………………………………26
Table 26: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 18)…………………….………………………………26
Table 27: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 19)……………….……………………………………91
Table 28: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 20)…………………….………………………………91
Table 29: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 21)…………………….…...…….……………………91
Table 30: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 22)……………………………….……………………92
Table 31: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 23)………………………………….…………………92
Table 32: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 24)…………………………….………………………92
Table 33: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 25)…………………………….………………………93
Table 34: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 26)…..…………….………..…………………………93
Table 35: Pre-test Results CG (Blank 27)………………….…………………………………93
Table 36: Achievement in the Pre-test (EXP. Groups)……………………………………. ...95
Table 37: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 1)...……………...………………....95
Table 38: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 2)……………….……………….....95
Table 39: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 3)……….………..………………...96
Table 40: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 4)………………...………………...96
Table 41: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 5)………………...………………...97
Table 42: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 6)……………..….………………...97
Table 43: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 7)………………………………......98
Table 44: Pre-test Results EXP. G1 & EXP. G2 (Blank 8)………..……….………………...98
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