How to Foster Motivation: A Case Study on Teachers’ Motivational Language Teaching

The present case study investigates the place of teachers’ in-class motivational behaviours as a factor affecting leaners’ motivated language learning behaviours. The study firstly aims to reveal the motivational teaching strategies used by the teachers. Then, it examines how teachers’ motivational teaching practice can foster motivated learning behaviour among students. By analysing the link between motivating teaching and motivated learning, the study aims to shed light on the effectiveness of teachers’ use of motivational strategies. In this holistic single-case study, an English instructor and 21 students in her classroom constituted the participants. The participant teacher’s classroom practices were the main sites to investigate motivational and motivated behaviours. Therefore, the main data collection method was classroom observations which were conducted through a classroom motivation observation form. The findings were also triangulated with other data sources like questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. By using multiple data collection tools, the researcher aimed to obtain a valid and reliable depiction of the teacher’s motivational orientation and the students’ motivated state. The results shed light into the participant teacher’s observed and perceived motivational teaching practice. A thematic analysis of the data supported the findings obtained through the observation data by revealing the motivational teaching practices as scaffolding, referential questions, establishing relevance, effective praise, tangible task product, promoting learner autonomy, etc. In the light of the results, pedagogical implications for motivational foreign language teaching and motivated learning were provided.