Sessions

Revitalizing Student Motivation through Gratitude Intervention

This study reports on how a gratitude-centered intervention helped to raise students’ motivation to study English between 2019 and 2020, amidst a climate of global uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The research involved ongoing observation of weekly Basic English Communication classes with a total of 300 students participating during the time period of the project. This work on gratitude is a part of broader work on positive psychology in language education, including the development of themed narrative mini-books, and self-compassion workshops. In the current study, gratitude-centered concepts were first introduced in lecture style with supportive multimedia examples. Later, students engaged in gratitude activities such as co-constructing a gratitude box and bin, gratitude journal, and storybook writing. Written questionnaires were also given to students towards the end of each 15-week semester. Throughout the project, motivation, attendance, attentiveness, gratitude, and ‘being aware of the small things’ were seen to increase.