📘 Part 3: Inspiration and motivation

This episode's vocabulary

Flexibility (noun) – the ability to adapt to different situations. → Online teaching gives students more flexibility.

Access (noun) – the right or opportunity to use or benefit from something. → Students now have access to teachers worldwide.

Engage (verb) – to attract and keep someone’s interest. → Teachers try to engage students with interactive materials.

Peer pressure (noun) – influence from members of one’s peer group. → Teenagers often make choices because of peer pressure.

Influence (noun) – the power to affect someone’s actions or thoughts. → Parents have a strong influence on their children.

Role model (noun) – a person looked up to as an example to follow. → Many athletes are role models for young people.

Negativity bias (noun) – the tendency to focus more on negative information. → The news often plays on our negativity bias.

Impending (adjective) – about to happen soon, usually something bad. → People are worried about the impending storm.

Disaster (noun) – a sudden event causing great damage or loss. → Earthquakes and floods are natural disasters.

Donation (noun) – something (often money) given to help a cause. → The charity received large donations after the flood.

Virtue (noun) – moral goodness or quality. → Patience is considered a great virtue.

Collapse (verb) – to fall down or fail suddenly. → His argument collapsed under close scrutiny.

Scrutiny (noun) – careful and critical examination. → The company’s finances are under public scrutiny.

Worship (verb) – to show great respect or admiration for someone or something. → Some fans almost worship famous singers.

Appropriate (adjective) – suitable or proper in the circumstances. → Teachers must use appropriate examples in class.

Motivation (noun) – the reason why someone acts or behaves in a certain way. → Praise from teachers can boost students’ motivation.

Dedication (noun) – the quality of being committed to a task. → Her dedication to her studies paid off in the exams.

Charisma (noun) – a special charm or power that inspires others. → Leaders with charisma often influence people easily.

Resilience (noun) – the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. → Children need resilience to cope with challenges.

Mentor (noun) – an experienced and trusted adviser. → A mentor can guide young people in their careers.

Questions and Answers

Maria: How can online teaching motivate students to learn?

Well, it certainly opens up a ton of avenues in terms of resources and flexibility, maybe access. Teachers can use a load of different materials to engage students as opposed to just one textbook, which is what they tend to use in a physical classroom. And the students can access more teachers, so they don't have to put up with what might be drier approaches in their own countries. Assuming they get the right person, that could be very encouraging.

Maria: Besides parents and teachers, who else can motivate children?

I suppose their peers are the next most significant influence, since we always hear about this concept of peer pressure, which can make kids do all kinds of activities, not always the ones in their best interests. Other than that, maybe role models? Though I'm not so sure about that. Maybe the influence is more indirect there.

Maria: What kind of international news inspires people?

Oh, wow, I wish I could say it was more positive press, but people have this inbuilt negativity bias, which means it's probably the news of impending doom and gloom, which makes them more likely to take action in protest of something or to prevent something from happening. For example, all the news about various natural disasters always seems to inspire a flood of charity donations.

Maria: Who can influence children more, teachers or parents?

Well, as a teacher, I would love to say it's people in my profession, but it's probably parents, just by virtue of the sheer volume of time their kids spend in their presence. You might get eight hours a day in school, but the rest is 16 hours in a home built and maintained by your folks. So there's not really any competition there. It's definitely the parents.

Maria: Why should children learn from role models?

Oh, God, I'm not sure they should, really. These abstract models of perfection and ideal behaviour very swiftly collapse under even minor scrutiny. But I can see why people think we should. Having an ideal to strive towards could be seen as inspiring, even if their lives and what took them to such heights don't really exist in the lives of the people who worship them.

Maria: What qualities make someone a role model?

Well, whatever is seen as a culturally appropriate model of success. In the West, that's largely people who are seen as wealthy or intelligent, or maybe talented, in the mainstream. And people who work hard, whatever that is supposed to mean or look like. I'm not a big fan of role models as a concept, really, to be honest with you.

Discussion

Maria: Teachers can use a load of materials. A load of means a lot of. To engage students. Engage - make students more active. And when we talk about creating ways to do things, we open up avenues or we open up opportunities. That means to create more.

Rory: Yeah, but could you give some examples?

Maria: Yeah, sure. Education opens up lots of avenues so you can do more. The more you know, the more you can do, or the more choices you have.

Rory: And exactly what materials could a teacher use online?

Maria: Oh, videos, this podcast, please. If you're a teacher!

Rory: Online quizzes, online games.

Maria: Yes. So lots of things that you cannot really use in a classroom. Although I have to say, if I'm given a choice, oh, I don't know. I quite like physical classrooms. However, this is because I have not been in one in a while. And as we record this, I am two days away from a two-month summer school course. So ask me again in two months time how I feel about teaching in a classroom. And I might say, no, no, online is fine.

Rory: Yeah, our Rory will go somewhere to teach offline. And Rory, where are you going?

Maria: I'm going to Oxford. I'll teach at St. Clair's. It's a private school. Of course you will. Rory is a teacher in Oxford. OK?

Rory: Temporarily… Let us temper this with reality.

Maria: Besides parents and children, means like parents, teachers, who else? So if not only parents and teachers, then who else? So, besides means kind of in addition, additionally to parents and teachers, who else can motivate children? And we say that their peers, peers are children of the same age.

Rory: They're not necessarily friends. They're in the same social circle.

Maria: Peer pressure is the pressure that children feel from their peers to do all kinds of activities. So if everyone has a smartphone, a child must have a smartphone. So peer pressure.

Rory: I thought you were going to just to stop there. Peer pressure is pressure.

Maria: It's pressure from peers. And also children usually have role models. And some questions could be about role models. And a role model could be parents, teachers, friends, peers, or celebrities, like anyone. A role model is a C1 word, a person whom someone admires, whose behaviour they try to copy. So children tend to copy role models. And, for example, like athletes, sports stars are role models for thousands of children. So children want to copy their role models like bloggers, influencers, celebrities, and actors.

Rory: But I hate role models.

Maria: Yeah, you do.

Rory: I'm not a big fan.

Maria: Yeah, we don't like role models.

Rory: Do you not like them either?

Maria: Well, no, no, I think like you should be your own model. Well, but I guess that any person should have, like, an instructor, a teacher, a person…

Rory: Yeah, but that's different to being a role model, though.

Maria: Yeah, but if you admire a person, like if you want to copy certain behaviours, they are kind of your role model. Right. But I'm thinking of this as like having a teacher, an instructor, a master, you know, like maybe a coach. It may not be your friend, but some person who kind of who inspires you to do things, who teaches you. So it's kind of more.

Rory: That's more of a guide than someone to base your life on.

Maria: A guide. Yeah, a guide.

Rory: Of course, role models would probably say that's what they are. But I don't know about that.

Maria: A strange question about international news. International news inspires people. What do they do? Does the news inspire people? I don't know. I don't understand.

Rory: Well, it makes them do things.

Maria: Hmm. So if I learn that, I don't know, international news…

Rory: If you learn that there's some good things happening in the world, then that might make you want to copy those actions, for example, maybe. But again, how we define goodness in terms of actions is difficult at best.

Maria: And a good strategy is to say, I wish I could say it was da-da-da, like I wish I could say, but I can't say. So I wish I could be positive here. But unfortunately, I can't be positive. It's all negative because the news is usually something about negative stuff. And you can say that I wish I could say that the news inspires people. And be careful, news it. News inspires, news gives, news shows and it inspires. So news it inspires. But usually news gives us a lot of negativity. For example, news about natural disasters, like floods, fires, they don't seem to inspire people much, or they inspire people to donate money to charity. So news about natural disasters usually inspire a flood of charity donations. It's interesting, you used a flood of charity donations, like a lot of.

Rory: And then I talked about natural disasters. That was not intentional, I promise you.

Maria: Natural disasters inspire floods. And that's true, yeah. Like when people learn about floods, fires, some other disasters, they want to donate money to help people in need. So this is a very good example of how international news inspires people. Charity, donations, helping people in need, helping people who lost their homes, or who need food, or money. Yeah, and this is quite common nowadays. Teachers influence children, or their peers influence them, or children's friends influence them. So the word is to influence somebody, but friends have an influence on children. Careful, so parents influence children more. No preposition, but parents have a greater influence on children. And Rory tells us that parents influence children more by virtue of the sheer volume of time.

Rory: Just by how much time they spend with them.

Maria: Yeah, so children spend most of the time with their parents. So that's why parents.

Rory: I think so anyway.

Maria: And a synonym for parents is like folks. So their folks influence children more. Quite informal, but yeah, you can use it, folks, meaning parents. Children want to copy. Children usually copy their role models, celebrities, and they learn what? They learn different behaviours. They learn what to wear, what to say, and some kind of philosophy.

Rory: Well, do they?

Maria: Yeah, but Rory is against role models. So actually, I didn't understand how you answered this question. So what should children learn? Or you are saying that they don't learn anything at all?

Rory: Well, I'm saying I don't think so. That's why I said I'm not sure they should do this. However, I did say I can understand why people might think that's a good idea.

Maria: And some children worship role models. So they worship bloggers, influencers or pop stars. They worship like, oh, that a person is like a god, and they create this ideal of a person. Who they worship. So this is not quite good.

Rory: At least I don't think so. Other people may have different opinions.

Maria: And there are different qualities that a role model could have. For example, they could be intelligent, talented. They could have a lot of money. But while it's not a quality, but still...

Rory: Well, money could be considered a quality, but it's just not a very good one. Or at least again, I don't think so.

Maria: Yeah, then like they could be charismatic, confident, positive. So these are all qualities like being hardworking. They work hard, are optimistic, healthy, for example, respectful.

Rory: Everything that Maria and I are.

Maria: But then you can say that I'm not a big fan of role models as a concept. So Rory is not into all this like role models. Rory copies himself. So he just, you know…

Rory: That's not quite what I said…

Maria: Yeah, but if you don't, if you're not into like role models, like you don't copy anybody, you don't like worship anybody. So you kind of decide for yourself. Right.

Rory: Yeah. Or if you exercise more thought or independence when it comes to defining yourself and how you should live your life.

Maria: Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Bye.

Rory: Bye.

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