Student and teacher perceptions of motivational strategies in the foreign language classroom

Abstract

The present paper reports on a study that builds upon Dörnyei and Csizér's and Cheng and Dörnyei's research on the teaching practices foreign language instructors consider most motivational. The study utilized an instrument based on that of Dörnyei and Csizér, but changed the cultural context in which the survey was administered (North America) and added the perspective of foreign language students. The results of the study offer further support to the findings of the earlier studies. Findings also suggest additional cross-cultural differences in perceptions of motivational teaching practices. Furthermore, the present study underscores the importance of including students’ perspectives on classroom practices, as some significant differences were found between teachers’ and students’ responses.

Keywords:

• motivation
• motivational strategies
• foreign language learning
• foreign language teaching
• classroom practices

Notes

1. Other strategies that were eliminated include ‘help maintain the set of classroom rules that students accepted,’ ‘involve students in creating their own classroom rules,’ and ‘regularly review the classroom rules with your students.’

2. In the original studies, Dörnyei and colleagues used various statistical procedures to cluster the microstrategies. For purposes of this study, we used Dörnyei and Csizer's original categories.

3. ‘Avoiding social comparisons’ was not grouped with any other strategies in the 1998 Hungarian study nor in the present study. In the Taiwanese study, this strategy was included under the macrostrategy of ‘create a pleasant classroom climate,’ but data are available on its individual ranking.