The term interest is used to designate a concept pertaining to factors within an individual which attract him to or repel him from various objects, persons and activities within his environment.

Interest is viewed in various ways as under:

1. Webster defines interest as excitement of feeling accompanying special attention to some object or concern, such as, an interest in Botany.

2. An interest is something with which the child identifies his personal well- being. Interest is a source of motivation which drives people to do what they want to do when they are free to choose. They specify a condition or cause of attention. We read a book, or attend a lecture on religious discourse, because we are interested in them.

3. The term ‘interest’ is also used to connote the felling of pleasure resulting from giving attention to something.

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4. Interest is defined as a feeling of pleasure resulting from attending to something not a cause but a result.

Interests become stable by the time development and growth reaches a level of maturity in an individual. Slow matures have interests in children while their other age mates develop interests those of adolescents.

Interests are influenced by cultural factors and are emotionally weighted. Interest was weakened by an unpleasant emotion (likewise it is) strengthened by pleasant emotion.

Aspects of Interest

Interest has both subjective and objective aspects as under:

1. Subjective:

In the subjective aspect, the emphasis in on the feeling component.

2. Objective:

In the objective aspect, the emphasis is on the motor behaviour of the individual.

All interests have cognitive, affective as well as motor aspects. The components that make up the cognitive aspects of interest are based on personal experiences gained from various means of communication at home, at school, and in the country. Interests give rise to certain activities. The attitude towards these activities is part of the affective domain.

Method to arouse interest:

Identifying Interest:

Every teacher wants to make his lesson interesting. He uses such teaching methods as may appeal to children’s interests and experiences and tries to set the material to be learnt in the matrix of their needs, concerns and environment. Such methods are likely to be more effective than those that do not appeal to children.

Effective teachers start with the interests of children and relate the entire school work to them so closely that their children acquire a very strong desire to learn. Once interests are found out and used, they attract the attention of pupils and also furnish clues to their basic drives. It may be assumed that when such fields of interest are identified and used, effective learning is bound to result.

Helping Children in Developing Desirable Interests:

The problem of interest does not end here. It involves far more than making a subject or lesson interesting which usually means rather superficial classroom motivation. This becomes at once clear when we regard interest as a more or less stable goal which tends to direct if not dominate behaviour.

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Interests are preferences and likes but even more than these, they are goals in which a person finds avenues for satisfaction and self-fulfillment. If we recognize what an interest really is, and what it stands for, and how it affects the life of boys and girls we teach, then nothing of greater significance can be done than to help them find and develop desirable and fruitful interests.

Establishing a Self-propelling Interest:

Interests are acquired like any other goal by an experience of success. Reading, for example, becomes an interest because one gets satisfaction out of it. A sense of identification or ego involvement becomes attached to it. If properly organized, reading provides a variety of satisfying success experiences.

Similarly many other co-curricular subjects may be established as interests. If a teacher wants the material he teaches to have a permanent effect, he should do all he can to establish the material as a self-propelling interest.

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Kindling Interest and sustaining it: Many curricular subjects do not become self-propelling interests because they are not properly organized. Modern Algebra, for example, is not an interesting subject because it is organized in such a way as to deaden interest rather than promote it.

Routine procedures have to be mastered and there is nothing in them which can give pride and pleasure to the students. The motivation is negative and we cannot get a positive effect from negative cause. Hence, Algebra becomes dull and un-interesting. One may say that Algebra should be interesting because it is worth studying. But what is worth studying? A subject worth studying is one whose effects are lasting.

The effects of Algebra-teaching are not at all lasting. Details of facts and techniques here are always forgotten both in and out of school. Hence, if the teacher of Algebra wants to establish his subject as a self-propelling interest, he should not only kindle interest in it but let the fire go on burning.

For this he will have to sacrifice-some sacred and cherished conventions like ground – covering and excessive drill on fundamentals. The function of the teacher is not to cover the ground and follow cherished conventions. The duties of the school are noHe-takeji predetermined body of content and trick it up to make it interesting.

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Its true function is to organize both content and teaching-learning situation with a view to establishing vital interests. The school and its teachers should do everything to develop significant interests and follow a deliberate policy and intelligent planning to promote them.

Once developed, interests tend to perpetuate themselves and become stronger as time goes on. Once an interest is kindled, it has the same feeding tendency as a forest fire. For example, when person is begins stamp collecting, he finds more and more in it.

The self-perpetuating tendency of interests is a tendency only. Hence, teachers should not only develop or arouse interests as may shape and mould the pattern of their children’s lives and determine their happiness but should try to perpetuate them so that they may flourish and not wither away as time goes on.

The following suggestions are given to kindle interest in an instructional material:

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1. Give a chance to your pupils to observe and experiment.

2. Use play way method of teaching.

3. Proceed from known to unknown; from particular to general.

4. Change subject or topic when your children begin to feel boredom. , Take children on educational tours. , Let children feel a need to learn a particular subject. . Satisfy curiosity. Give proper amount of homework.