Motivating in the Production-Oriented Approach: From Theory to Practice

Abstract Motivating is the most creative phase of the Production-Oriented Approach (POA), making it different from other teaching approaches from the outset. This study aims to introduce the theory of motivating and its application to College English teaching practice by adopting dialectal research (DR). First, it gives an overall introduction to motivating, including its function, steps, and categories. Then it demonstrates two rounds of motivating practice in teaching College English by using the POA-based textbook iEnglish . The first round of motivating practice mainly focuses on how to follow the three steps of motivating in a specific case, namely, the teacher providing scenarios, the students trying out the productive activity, and the teacher explaining the productive objectives. The second round attempts to apply the criteria of motivating effectiveness to practice, namely, authentic communication, cognitive challenges and appropriate productive objectives. Furthermore, the teaching effectiveness of the motivating practice is appraised by both the teacher’s and students’ retrospective evaluations. Finally, some suggestions for motivating design and future research are proposed.