MOTIVES FOR CHOOSING A CAREER OF TEACHING ENGLISH

Professional qualifi cation, subject matter knowledge, methodological teaching skills, dedication to teaching, enthusiasm and commitment in teaching are essential keys in determining teachers’ competency and teaching effi cacy. The purpose of the article is to explore motives for choosing a career of teaching English. Research methods used: theoretical analysis and systematization of pedagogical works, which made it possible to identify conceptual considerations on main motives for choosing a career of teaching English; observations and practices of author’s teaching experience are also used and included to reveal the main aspects of the issue under analysis. The study fi ndings suggest that for many teachers, the career of teaching is more than just a job. The «performance gap» that these teachers experience between their ideals and the reality of the classroom, suggests that teaching is a calling. Research indicates that one strong motivation for choosing teaching career is that women are infl uenced by their parents slightly more than by their teachers in their decisions to become teachers. The data suggest that parents encourage their daughters more to choose teaching as a perspective career than their sons. In fact, career choice usually involves a diff erence in motives. On the one hand, there are a lot of teachers without an initial vocation who fi nd themselves enjoying the work and becoming very committed. On the other hand, there were teachers who had an initial vocation who found their enthusiasm and motivation waning over the years. So it was revealed that teachers in both these categories may in time have to deal with de-motivation.

Introduction. Over the last two decades, the use of English as an international means of communication has expanded enormously. Such rapid stream of lingua franca has caused to have experienced and professional teachers of English to meet the up-to-date challenges in schools.
Obviously, it would have been complex to imagine the whole essence of teaching career without immediately thinking of its true motives. In this approach, valuable fi ndings on motives are depicted by Huberman and his team researching lives of teachers. Their conclusions suggest that motives for teaching can be the most common such as: pleasure of contact with young people; love of a specifi c subject; teaching as a pleasure; the sense of a calling to help others understand and to facilitate their language; the infl uence of a former teacher; the desire to have an infl uence on young people, on the way in which teaching is conducted, or on society as a whole [8, p.113-117].
Bolin has pointed out that all such motives come from sources that are personal to the individual teacher, and linked specifi cally to teaching itself, rather than from the external rewards that teaching may off er, such as long holidays, and, in the past, job security or prestige within certain communities [3].
The greatest satisfactions of teaching are found not in pay, prestige or promotion but in what Lortie called the psychic rewards of teaching. By this, he meant the joys and satisfactions of caring for and working with young people. The teachers in the study talked a lot about the pleasures of being «with the kids». They spoke of the immense pleasure of hearing a child read his or her fi rst word or sentence. Several were eager to say that while they had been critical of certain aspects of their work they did not want the interviewer to think they disliked teaching. Even when bureaucratic pressures and constraints seemed overbearing, it was the kids and being with the kids as they learnt that kept these teachers going, choosing a career of teaching Lortie [11].
There is a large volume of published studies investigating factors and motives for becoming teachers [3; 4; 5; 6; 8; 9; 11; 13]. That issue has important fi ndings in the article of Wright and Tuska who affi rm that teaching is rooted in the expression of early yearnings and fantasies [14]. The similar interpretation is noted by Lortie who states that early teaching models are internalized during childhood and triggered in adulthood. Although these two investigations have diff erent theoretical basis, both hold that to a considerable extent the decision to teach is based on experiences that predate formal teacher training and go back to childhood [4; 11].
Those who are entering the teaching profession, or even those who are already in a teaching line, should ask why they wish to teach. According to Johnson, there are many reasons why people choose teaching as a career. One strong motivation for many teachers is their identifi cation with adult models -parents and especially teachers -during their childhood. Research indicates that women are infl uenced by their parents slightly more than by their teachers in their decisions to become teachers. Though, men are infl uenced by their teachers more than twice as often as by their parents [13].
The data suggest that parents encourage their daughters more to choose teaching as a perspective career than their sons. In the analysis and critique of Cuban, this is due to the wider range of professional choices that have been available for men in the past and the traditional view that teaching is a respected and rewarding occupation for women but does not hold a similar status for men [10].
Teacher decisions about planning, implementing, and assessing matter a great deal. As attempts are made to improve schools and increase student achievement, one constant has remained: Teachers are the most important factor in improving schools. Attempts to reform or improve education depend on the knowledge, skills, and commitment of teachers. This point is made emphatically by Darling−Hammond and Baratz−Snowden in the work «A Good Teacher in Every Classroom: Preparing the Highly Qualifi ed Teachers Our Children Deserve». Teachers need to know how to implement new practices concerning the basic teaching functions, but they must also take ownership or the innovation will not succeed [5].
The aim of the article is to explore main motives for choosing a career of teaching English. Methods of the research used: analysis and systematization of pedagogical works, which made it possible to identify conceptual considerations on main motives for choosing a career of teaching English; observations and practices of author's teaching experience are also used and included to reveal the main aspects of the issue under description.
Results and Discussions. One of the most interesting fi nding depicts that Peter Adonis probably doesn't consider himself a bad teacher, but knows that this does not necessarily make him a good teacher.
Some researchers Lortie, Huberman have noticed a tendency of teachers in their early to mid-careers to be dissatisfi ed with the adequacy of their practice. It suggests that for many teachers, the career of teaching is more than just a job. The «performance gap» that these teachers experience between their ideals and the reality of the classroom, suggests that teaching is a «calling», or a «vocation». And although we've seen that a vocation can cause some performance anxiety, it also holds a number of important rewards for such teachers [4; 8; 11].
An interesting fi nding was received through analysis the essence of the term calling and, moreover, examine what a highly respected schoolteacher Kohl considers on teaching as a calling. The fi rst interpretation of calling, emphasized by Kohl, represents a desire to share what you value and to empower others. Studying and analyzing his considerations and ideas, it was discovered that he started teaching at the age of twenty and his students were eight, twelve or sixteen years old. Then at the age of thirty-fi ve and those young pupils were in their twenties or thirties. He found out that there was not as much diff erence between thirty-fi ve and thirty, as between twenty-fi ve and twelve and what is more, students can catch up with the teacher and quite often end up knowing more than the teacher. It was valuable to witness that continuous growth at the same time with another group of learners.
Secondly, according to Kohl, calling is seen when the teacher can observe and feel the students grow, and that is mostly the reason to teach and the reward of teaching. Kohl's teaching philosophy is classical and as simple as a nudge that is to teach and devote to students and teaching itself like it is the last day. Try to give learners all of your knowledge and inspiration so that knowledge can increase and expand to an extent where novelties can bloom and be implemented in order to exercise them for bridging up the loopholes which exist in our societies today.
Thirdly, Kohl shares with his idea on calling as a kind of devotion to work − when the teacher is born to be a teacher and truly devoted to do work. His father was a teacher and his grandmother was a teacher, so it ran in the family, in the genes.
The last but not least, to Kohl's point of view, calling in teaching appears to be a lifelong passion for supporting the learners' attainment, when the teacher may feel that it is the only profession that makes sense for the teacher to pursue, but it is much broader than that [9].
Realistically, it was found out that a career choice usually involves a mixture of motives. We know many teachers without an initial vocation who fi nd themselves enjoying the work and becoming very committed. We also know teachers who had an initial vocation who fi nd their enthusiasm and motivation waning over the years. So teachers in both these categories may in time have to deal with de-motivation [12].
Due to theoretical analysis, enormous observations and practices, 15-year author's teaching experience and everlasting discussions, interviews with teachers and colleagues, it would be worth outlining and suggesting a couple of valuable steps in order to motivate and empower students training to be teachers in the future.
Being passionate. This passion for your discipline is fi rst for you, only later to be shared with your students. It nourishes you, and you must nourish it back. It will later form the foundation for the passion and zeal you model for your students, but at the start it is yours to guard selfi shly. And you must guard it. Many will want to diminish it, deprive you of it, even negate it. You will be, or have been, told that it is foolish, that you must be more practical, that you cannot spend all of your time doing this, that the real world beckons, and that you must grow up. You are no doubt by now practiced at resisting the power of these arguments and even counterbalancing them with better logic. You will need to keep up that practice as the assault on your passion is not likely to diminish [6].
Being authentic is the fi rst step in using oneself to motivate and empower learning. Main components of being authentic in the classroom are shown in the Figure 1. In fact, it is recommended to know yourself well, be comfortable with who you are, and then generously share yourself with your students. Students are quite in tune with how genuine and authentic you are in the classroom. They easily detect artifi ciality, acting, and disingenuous behavior. Likewise, they embrace genuine and authentic self-presentations. That is, it is much more important for students that you are true to yourself, that your identity in the classroom match who you are beyond the classroom, than that you act in any particular prescribed manner. As I said, students are good diagnosticians on this issue. They will readily recognize false enthusiasm for a lesson, artifi cial attempts at motivation, and they will dismiss encouraging platitudes if they do not seem genuine. Moreover, the stakes are high here. If you fail here the consequences can be quick and severe, and recovery is very diffi cult. If you are seen as phony or fake, insincere, or even dishonest, it will be diffi cult for you to succeed as a successful educator. You will have undermined your message and distracted from the content of the lesson. You will have forced students to question everything you off er, whether that be a passing remark or an important piece of feedback to them. You will have lost your standing as the expert, the leader, the guide, and the helper. Recovery, if at all possible, will occur only slowly and it will have to be earned. It will be far better not to lose such standing in the fi rst place rather than have to use valuable resources to rebuild it [1].
If you dedicate yourself to being genuine and honest in your self-presentation, students will forgive you for much. They can be quite understanding of your foibles and failures if you own them, rather than try to deny them. They will embrace your imperfections with you if you do not deny them in the face of reality. If organization is not your forte, do not pretend it is. If timeliness is not your strength, do not punish.
In process of deep search, analysis and then discussions, it was found out that motives are based on traditional motivational theories deal with behavioristic, cognitive and humanistic learning.
Taking into consideration behavioristic learning, it assumes that all behaviors are either refl exes produced by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment (Wikipedia). It concentrates on motivating factors infl uence what makes a reinforcer in a classical behaviorism as well as Skinnerian behaviour. If we wish to enhance behaviour in frequency or duration, then we reinforce behaviour and do so by selecting as reinforcers certain things that people value. A 'gold star' or positive comment can work wonders with shaping young learners, and teachers have learnt these reinforcers in their classrooms [1].
To support behavioristic doctrine, in 1937 Skinner developed operant conditioning that deals with the modifi cation of «voluntary behaviour» or operant behaviour. Operant is a set of stimulus that produces meaningful consequences to an animal. It can further be divided into reinforcement (stimulus that increase the probability of performing behaviors) and punishment (stimulus that decrease the probability of performing behaviors). The core tools of operant conditioning are either positive (delivered following a response), or negative (withdrawn following a response). The following descriptions explained the concepts of four common types of operant conditioning in details [1]: Positive reinforcement: Providing an individual something that he/she desired as reinforcement, e.g. A child loves playing video-games. A mother reinforced the tendency to provide a helping hands to other family members by providing more time for a child to play games.
Negative reinforcement: Getting out something that an individual doesn't want as a reinforcer, e.g. A child doesn't like doing revision. A mother said that if a child could take care of younger brother for 1 hour, a child could revise course content for 1 hour as an exchange.
Positive punishment: Presenting something that an individual doesn't like, e.g. every human doesn't like pain. If a child performs poorly in the examination, a father will beat a child up.
Negative punishment: Getting out something that an individual wants as a punisher, e.g. A child loves playing video-games. A mother punishes children for the failing in an examination. They cannot play video games for 1 week.
Classical experiment in operant conditioning, for example the Skinner Box, «puzzle box» or operant conditioning chamber to test the eff ects of operant conditioning principles on rats, cats and other species. From the study of Skinner box, he discovered that the rats learned very eff ectively if they were rewarded frequently with food. Skinner also found that he could shape the rats' behavior through the use of rewards, which could, in turn, be applied to human learning as well.
On the one hand, the theory that positive reinforcement plays a signifi cant role to encourage students learn in the classroom is certain to be apparent because to give learners praise or rewards for their behaviour and work makes them desire to continue doing well. But on the other hand, negative reinforcement is aimed at giving students punishments and criticism when their behaviour, attitude to learning and achievements are bad in order to make them willing to improve and avoid punishments again. Such approach can lead students to perform below their academic potential. In fact, what students need is not more criticism or pressure. The best approach, at least for most of them, is a nurturing and supportive one as students need to receive plenty of positive reinforcement to be motivated [1; 3].
Co nclusions. Teaching is a highly individualized, voluntary and confi dential process. What works for one student will not work for another. Teaching has to be mostly focused on student's needs, interests, wishes. In fact, we should be cautious about looking down on such motivations because extrinsically motivated teachers will tend to relate to teaching primarily as a job; they are less likely to see diffi culties as challenges, and are therefore more likely to fi nd their motivation weakening in the face of problems. As it was found out and as a result described in this study, personal factors, decision and motives to choose teaching as a career appear to be signifi cantly related to teacher commitment in teaching. It is worth recommending that the set of core values and beliefs in helping students' learning and development should be promoted in teacher education program, allowing teachers' constant refl ection and support at the institution level. The prospects for further scientifi c research could be presented in the study and comparative analysis of motives for choosing a career of teaching a foreign language in European countries.