A Study On College English Teachers, Use Of Motivational Strategies In Class

The present study aims to explore teachers’ motivational strategies that areapplicable to Chinese College English teaching context. The study is mainlymotivated by four factors:(1)the emergence and development of education-orientedapproach in L2motivation research since1990s;(2)the relevant researches home andabroad show that “demotivation” towards L2learning is quite common amongstudents and teachers are held to be a key determinant which leads to students’decreased motivation;(3)current researches on L2motivational strategies,particularly empirical studies, are still inadequate both in quantity and quality;(4)College English Curriculum Requirements (2007) promotes the use of a new modelof College English teaching so as to “facilitate mobilizing the initiative of both teachersand students”, which indicates a shift of College English teaching in China from “how toteach” to “how to motivate”. Three parts are included as the major content of the study:(1)a review and evaluation of theoretical studies on motivation and motivational strategiesin the fields of psychology and L2teaching;(2)an empirical research on College Englishteachers’ use of motivational strategies in class;(3)an exploration into the effective use ofmotivational strategies by College English teachers in specific teaching context.To begin with, the present study reviews the significant results of theoreticalresearches on motivation both in psychology and in L2learning. Motivational theories inpsychology have developed from the behavioristic theory of stimulus-response, thehumanistic need theory to current cognitive theories among which most prominent ones arethe expectancy-value theory, goal theory, self determination theory and the theory ofplanned behavior. These theories provide realistic guidance and enlightenment for L2teaching from different perspectives. Meanwhile they propel the research on L2learningmotivation. By drawing upon the essence of the existing major motivational theories inpsychology and L2learning, Hungarian scholar Dornyei, the contemporary representativeresearcher in L2learning motivation, has successively constructed a three-level frameworkof L2motivation, a process model of L2motivation and the L2motivational self system,which together constitute his unique theoretical system of L2learning motivation. Thepresent study takes this system as its most essential theoretical basis. With the advancements of theoretical researches on motivation, researchers havegradually started to carry out studies on motivational strategies in the fields of psychologyand L2teaching. Psychologists home and abroad have put forward a series of principlesand suggestions for motivating learning by exploring the application of motivationaltheories in psychology to classroom teaching. In the field of L2teaching, Dornyei, basedon his L2motivation theories, has developed a most comprehensive system of motivationalstrategies to date. This system serves as an important reference tool for the empiricalresearch on College English teachers’ use of motivational strategies in class.Under the guidance of theoretical research findings, an empirical study was conductedto examine College English teachers’ actual use of motivational strategies in class. Thestudy consisted of two phases. With one hundred and five College English teachers fromShanghai University, Shanghai Normal University, Tongji University, Shanghai Instituteof Foreign Trade and Shanghai Dianji University as its subjects, the study in the firstphase was done to investigate the frequency of College English teachers’ use of motiva-tional strategies in class as well as its correlation with teacher self efficacy and teachers’demographic variables(gender, educational qualifications, teaching seniority and profess-ional title) respectively. Data was collected via questionnaires and interviews. Descriptivestatistics of “frequency” questionnaires suggested most frequently used motivationalstrategies and least frequently used ones. Interview findings showed fairly high consist-ency with the results of questionnaires and revealed the subjective and objective reasonswhy teachers used certain strategies less often. Partial correlation analysis indicated thatteacher self efficacy and the frequency of teachers’ use of motivational strategies werepositively correlated while no significant correlation was found between teachers’ demo-graphic characteristics and the frequency of their use of motivational strategies.To examine the effectiveness of the motivational strategies most frequently used byCollege English teachers and the effects of students’ English proficiency level on thestrategy effectiveness, a further study was carried out during the second phase withtwelve College English teachers and their ninety-six sophomores from Shanghai DianjiUniversity as its subjects. Data was collected through the instrumentality of question-naires, interviews and class observations. The descriptive statistical analysis of question- naire data revealed that there were some motivational strategies which students consideredquite effective and some others not so effective. What students said in the interviewconfirmed this revelation and also suggested the major reasons why some strategies failedto work on them. Besides, several strategies which students claimed to have motivatedtheir learning successfully were precisely what teachers seldom used in their teaching.Though not included in the questionnaire scale, some teachers’ teaching practice observedin class was affirmed to be fairly popular with most of the students. The independentsample T-test indicated that significant differences existed between effects of the majorityof motivational strategies on high-and low-proficiency groups, thereby verifying Dornyei’shypothesis that the English proficiency level of students may affect the effectiveness of themotivational strategies. The aforementioned research results and findings provide somepractical guidance and enlightenment for improving the efficiency of College Englishteaching.Finally, based on the findings of the theoretical research and the empirical study, aswell as taking her own years of teaching experience as reference, the researcher furtherdiscussed the motivational strategies that corresponded with the specific contexts ofCollege English teaching in China. In many Chinese universities and colleges, gradeteaching is implemented in College English with students being divided into differentclasses according to their different English proficiency levels. And it’s not uncommon forstudents in the same class to show great differences in their English proficiency since thereare usually a large number of students in each English class. The relevant conclusion ofthe second-phase empirical study suggested that the majority of motivational strategiesexerted distinctively different motivating effects on high-and low-proficiency students.Therefore College English teachers should, upon taking into full account different psycho-logical characteristics and learning needs of high-and low-proficiency students, manage toadopt appropriate strategies accordingly to stimulate, sustain and enhance their motivation.Low-proficiency students are inclined to suffer from the feeling of inferiority and showlack of confidence in or indifferent attitudes towards learning English. To motivate them,teachers ought to focus on: providing opportunities for them to experience success on aregular basis so as to help them rebuild confidence in learning English; making English learning meaningful and fun to arouse their interest; evaluating student achievement in amotivating way by increasing the ratio of formative assessment in total assessment andtaking students’ efforts and progress into consideration when assessing them; using techni-ques of questioning and listening skillfully to show attention to and care for each student;developing and implementing an individualized strategy plan when necessary. High-proficiency students usually have high expectations for classroom teaching. If not satisfied,they are likely to feel frustrated and lose their original passion for learning. They may alsostart to slack themselves and lose the incentive for further learning as their short-termlearning objectives have been realized. Teachers can maintain and enhance the motivationof high-proficiency students for learning English by working on the following aspects:providing students with rich knowledge and experience of English culture by integratingcultural contents into teaching; clearly expressing high expectations for students andtraining students to construct a combination of the ideal English self and the ought-toEnglish self; instructing and encouraging students in the use of self-motivating skills tomotivate their own learning; designing some challenging learning tasks to help cultivatingstudents’ higher-rank thinking abilities.Large class teaching and multimedia-aided teaching are two distinguishing characteri-stics of contemporary College English teaching in China. In large classes, teachers andstudents are likely to become alienated, which can lead to sharp drop in students’ enthusi-asm for learning. Teachers may also be discouraged from employing certain motivationalstrategies, for instance, they find it hard to spare time and efforts on instructing students ina large class to draft personalized learning objectives and learning plans. In view of thesedisadvantages of large class teaching, the researcher proposed that teachers, when teachingCollege English in a large class, should try the following strategies to motivate studentlearning to the maximum extent: adapting the teaching style to increase interactions withstudents; highlighting goal-orientation and task value; carrying out group learningactivities and enhancing the authenticity of communication between group members;emphasizing discipline and class rules. Integration of multimedia network technology hasbrought about new opportunities for English teaching. However, some relevant researchfindings showed that, due to the poor conditions of hardwares and softwares, the old-fashi- oned teaching concepts and methods of the teachers, teachers’and students’ lack of suffici-ent computer skills, etc, multimedia-aided teaching seemed to have failed to play its part inoptimizing teaching and stimulate learning. Therefore the researcher pointed out that, inorder to bring the motivating power of multimedia-aided teaching into full play, teachersshould make an attempt to: increase the communication and resource sharing betweenteachers and students by making use of the network platform; integrate technology effe-ctively into teaching by implementing task-based learning activities in CALL classrooms;promote network-based extracurricular autonomous learning.Those motivational strategies proved effective in the second-phase empirical studycontained both intrinsic strategies and extrinsic ones. The researcher pointed out thatstudents could be best motivated when teachers employed intrinsic and extrinsic strategiesin a balanced and combined way. The following strategies are aimed at working on theintrinsic learning motivation of the students: to stimulate the situational interest andcultivate the individual interest; to promote autonomous learning by replacingteacher-controlled teaching with autonomy-supportive teaching; to design learning taskswhich match the students’ abilities so as to meet their competence needs; to establishharmonious and cooperative teacher-student and student-student relationships to meetstudents’ needs for feeling related; to strengthen students’ English language and culturalvalues to help them develop integrative motivation. In order to arouse students’ extrinsicmotivation, teachers should: make sure rewards exert positive effects on students’motivation for learning; praise students in an effective way; guide students’ progress withwarm and well-meaning criticism;“provoke” knowledge conflicts in class and encourageintergroup competition and intragroup cooperation when carrying out learning activities;use multi-interactions as extrinsic sources for motivating learning; emphasize the realisticsignificance and value of learning English. Teachers ought to combine intrinsic andextrinsic motivational strategies to achieve best possible results in stimulating andmaintaining students’ motivation for learning.Relevant results of the first-phase empirical study indicated that significant positivecorrelations existed between the level of teachers’ self efficacy and the frequency of theiruse of motivational strategies. Enhancing teachers’ self efficacy will facilitate mobilizing their initiative in employing motivational strategies. The enhancement of teacher selfefficacy is in essence a kind of self-improvement, which can be achieved by: workingclosely with colleagues for mutual progress via cooperative development and peerobservation; promoting reflective teaching through writing teaching journals on a regularbasis and implementing timely action researches; establishing self-esteem and self-confidence through full commitment to the teaching career and professional learning;realizing self-motivation via construction of achievement portfolios; awakening healthyemotional and physical status.The present study, based on theoretical and empirical research findings, explored indepth the motivational strategies used by teachers in class which applied to the CollegeEnglish teaching context in China. It provides practical guidance for teachers to improvethe effectiveness of College English teaching fundamentally by successfully stimulatingstudents’ motivation for learning.