Rewarding Young Learners

Who doesn't like if somebody give reward or appreciation word? Moreover if the reward are given to children, they will naturally be very happy to accept it. As a teacher, Reward is also called teachers’ reinforcement. Teachers’ reinforcement is one of the behavioral approaches to learning based on operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning) by B.F. Skinner. According to B. F. Skinner (1938), operant conditioning is a form of learning in which the consequences of behavior, rewards or reinforcement, produce changes in the probability that the behavior will occur. Reinforcement is divided into two kinds, positive and negative reinforcement. In positive reinforcement, the frequency of a response increases because it is followed by rewarding stimulus whereas in negative reinforcement, the frequency of response increases when it is followed by removal of an aversive stimulus. However, rewarding is very beneficial applied by teacher in the classroom in order to increase students’ motivation.

Motivation is a crucial aspect of teaching and learning process. In fact, young learners with higher motivation in learning will achieve the best results in their performances. Motivation to learn can be defined as the psychological processes that direct and sustain students’ behavior toward learning. The arrays of factors that may motivate a learner to learn have led to the traditional distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation involves doing something to obtain something else. Extrinsic motivation is often influenced by external incentives or rewarding. However, intrinsic motivation arises from internal factors. Thus, a child may be motivated by the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to make themselves feel better. Therefore, both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are very essential elements on the learning process, and it is important for a teacher to be truly effective to help their students feel motivated to learn and achieve.

For young learners, intrinsically motivated to study is not easy thing. As a result, they will not be consistently motivated in learning and teaching process. It is related to their characteristic that is ego. This proves that teachers should give reward to their learner, but they do not always and should wisely give them rewards because it can make their intrinsic motivation drop. There are some rewards that teachers can use in the classroom such as praise, score or start, or games. However, before giving rewarding, teacher should know about when the reinforcement is given in order to increase motivation. According to Santrok (2010), they are:

1. Choose effective reinforcement. Not all reinforcers or rewards are the same for every child. Applied behavior analysis recommend that teachers find out what reinforcers work best with which children—that is, individualize the use of particular reinforcers (Scarlett, Pontem &Singh, 2009)
2. Make reinforcers contigent and timely. For a reinforcer to be effective, the teacher must give it only after the child performs the particular behavior. Reinforcers are more effective when they are given in a timely way, as soon as possible aft er the child performs the target behavior (Umbreit & others, 2007). Th is helps children see the contingency connection between the reward and their behavior. If the child completes the target behavior (such as doing 10 math problems by mid morning) and the teacher doesn’t give the child playtime until late afternoon, he might have trouble making the contingency connection.
3. Select the best schedule of reinforcement. Most of the examples given so far assume continuous reinforcement—that is, the child is reinforced every time he or she makes a response. The teachers can also use partial reinforcement. Partial reinforcement involves reinforcing a response only part of the time. Skinner developed the concept of schedules of reinforcement, which are partial reinforcement timetables that determine when a response will be reinforced.
4. Considering contracting. In contracting, reinforcement contingencies are put in writing

In Conclusion, rewarding can be use to increase frequency of good response of young learner.  This will also help to motivate young learner to study English. As a result, they engage themselves in every activities on learning and teaching process in the classroom.

References
Santrok, J.W., (2011). Educational Psychology (5th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Scarlett, W. G., Ponte, I. C., & Singh, J. P. (2009). Approaches to behavior and classroommanagement. Th ousand Oaks, CA: Sage.