The Effects Of Teacher Behavior In EFL Classroom On Students' Learning Motivation

Motivation has been a field of study for a long time for psychologists and language educators. How to motivate students effectively to learn English is one of the major concerns for English teachers too. This study focuses on students' perceptions of teacher behavior in EFL classroom and the relationship between these perceptions and students' motivation. In order to do this investigation, student perception data have been gathered with 76 non-English majors, located in two classes of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Data of teacher behavior have also been gathered from classroom observations of the three teachers offering three English courses to the participant students. Responses from interviews with chosen students have been used to reveal the impact of teacher behavior on students' motivation.Teacher behavior was conceptualized in terms of three behavioral dimensions: Affective Support (an anxiety-free environment with rapport between teachers and students), Manner of Handling Problems (such as fairness/unfairness, praise/criticism, etc.), and Teaching Operations (Such as cramming the students/interaction with the students). Motivation was also conceptualized in terms of three dimensions: Intrinsic Motivation drawn from Noel (intrinsic-knowledge, intrinsic-accomplishment, intrinsic-stimulation, competence, choice and relatedness), Educational Variables taken from Gardner's and State Motivation adapted from Christophel's. A series of data analysis methods were adopted. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed in this study, such as statistical description, analytic induction, typological, situational and correlation analyses. The open-ended question responses from interviews were analyzed inductively and typologically after all the relevant responses were transcribed, grouped and coded with items to be tested as units of analysis.Results of student perception data reveal that students perceive teacher behavior in terms of Affective Support with frequencies higher than the other two dimensions, which is in accordance with the findings in classroom observations. Secondly, the frequency of positive teacher behavior is much higher that of negative behavior. Finally, behaviors of Affective Support were positively associated with students' motivation and their correlations were statistically significant. Behaviors representing manner of handling problems were not associated with students' motivation. Behaviors of teaching operations were significantly associated with only three items of motivation.The implication of the study is that teachers should have the awareness of their behavior in classroom and they are an important source of motivation in EFL classrooms.