Effort or Result?

Talent is natural or it can be developed?

To develop high performer students, praising effort achieves way more than praising results. If we do it the right way, praise can be incredibly motivating, encouraging, inspiring. However, if we take the wrong approach praising can actually have the opposite effect.

The difference lies in whether we assume student’s skills as an innate ability or the result of hard work and effort.

Here we arrive to the one million dollar question.

Talent is natural or it can be developed?

According to researches, there are two approaches to talent:

1.      The belief that intelligence, ability, and skills are inborn and relatively fixed (we "have" what we were born with).

2.      The belief that intelligence, ability, and skills can be developed through effort (we "are" what we work to become).

The difference lies on how we praise our students.

When we praise students for their achievements or when we criticize them, we face the first approach. Students come to see every mistake as a failure. No immediate results means failure. They can lose motivation and even stop trying.

When we praise students for their effort and application, we face the second approach. We help to create an environment where students feel anything is possible, as long as they keep working to improve.

Let us replace "You are really smart” for "I have faith in you” or “You are a hard worker”, “I have never seen you give up”, “I know you will get this".

The best way to improve students’ performance is to create and foster a growth mindset. They will also be more willing to take more risks.

When they understand that failure is just a step on the road to eventual achievement, risks are no longer something to avoid.

Risks and failures will be expected steps on the way to learn.

The "Little Secret" to learn a Foreign Language…

Fluency in a second language opens so many doors. There are more job opportunities, more potential friends and acquaintances, and the chance to learn about different countries and their cultures. 

Many people start out with good intentions, but then for various reasons give up their study. “It is too hard”; “I do not have enough time”, “At my age”; “What for”, etc., etc. The Drama Mode activates and our Brain gives up.

On the other side, many people master foreign languages and become quite fluent in them.

What is their "Little Secret"? An Empathic Language Teacher!

An Empathic Teacher is fundamental to learn in a pleasant and effective way.

She/he is a trigger to…

1. Motivation to Communicate

2. Constant Practice

3. Disinhibition

4. Willingness to learn from mistakes

5. The habit to contextualise

6. New connections to get the “Aha Moment”

7. The conviction to express your idea, anyhow

8. The focus on Speaking, not just on Grammar

9. Monitoring and comparison your own speech with others’

10. Self-Confidence

Intrinsic Motivation

“If we start kids by rewarding them with prizes, their Intrinsic Motivation will vanish.”

The link between Motivation and rewards is very subtle in Education and Learning.

Rewarding students for getting their schoolwork done with prizes can have the effect of dismantling a child’s passion to learn. The Intrinsic Motivation that come from exploring interests in depth, and mastering difficult concepts and problems, can be smothered by a reward system that focuses on grades or tests rather than understanding. 

Our cultural inclination to praise and reward kids, often for minimal achievement, contributes to the decline in kids’ Intrinsic Motivation. Students have to be responsible for their own learning process otherwise, they lose Confidence and Motivation. Teachers are mere facilitators to help them become independent young learners.

It is important to praise their effort rather than their results and never forget fun that drives enthusiasm and curiosity for learning.

Educators have the power to affect how students are motivated.