In the previous chapters we have analysed ways of creating the basic motivational conditions, generating initial motivation and maintaining and protecting existing motivation. There is only one main motivational issue we have not talked about yet: the learners' appraisal of and reactions to their own past performance. It is a characteristic of humans that rather than looking forward and only concentrating on forthcoming challenges, they spend a great deal of time looking back, evaluating what they have done and how well it went, while trying to draw lessons for the future. In this way the past becomes closely tied to the future and, accordingly, a very important aspect of motivating learners is to help them to deal with their past in a way that it will promote rather than hinder future efforts.

All right, you may say, I can accept that what we have done in the past is related to what we will do in the future, but what's the point of talking about this? There isn't an awful lot we can do about what has already happened. The problem with this argument is that it does not take the subjective nature of human evaluation into account. Students' appraisal of their past performance does not only depend on the absolute level of success they have achieved but also on how they interpret their achievement. Have you ever seen people who were bursting with confidence and satisfaction even though what they actually produced should not have given any reason for it?