The Relationship Between Teacher Immediacy And Student Intrinsic Motivation

This is a case study about the relationship between students' perceived teacher immediacy and their intrinsic motivation to learn English. The participants were a teacher of English and her 50 students in one of the key senior high schools in Shanghai. In this school students, on the basis of their English levels, are grouped in English learning. Originating from two classes in Semester 2 of Grade 1, the 50 students the teacher taught in the study were in one of the intermediate level classes in Grade 2. In conformity with the school regulations each semester two or three (about 5%) students in this class would be either upgraded to an advanced class or downgraded to an elementary class. The average English score of the class ranked the middle among the intermediate level classes in the final examination in the first semester, Grade 2.A mixed methodology of both the qualitative and quantitative research was adopted in the study. In the qualitative research, by means of open-ended questionnaires, field observations and semi-structured interviews, students' intrinsic motivations and their perceptions of teacher immediacy were investigated. On the other hand, the Likert-type scale questionnaire was computed and analyzed statistically in description and correlation by SPSS 11.5 in the quantitative research. The correlational analysis explored the interplay of student intrinsic motivation, state motivation, students' perceptions of teacher immediacy and educational variables (attitudes, intensity, anxiety and grades). Further, the reliabilities and item discrimination of different scales in the questionnaire were assessed.The findings of the study showed that teacher immediacy was in positive correlation with student intrinsic motivation. Meantime, the Spearman analysis indicated that nonverbal immediacy was strongly related to students' freedom of choice about their English-related activities in or after class, and that it had close linkages with students' attitudes and intensity of English learning. The findings supported the argument that teacher's verbal immediacy would impact greatly on the relationships between teachers and students as well as on the knowledge students were to acquire and develop. Additionally, the attitudes and state motivation, in association with quite a few other factors, played a significant role in the English study of students. Interestingly, it was discovered in the study that grades bore relationto both Intrinsic-Stimulation and attitudes of English learning, indicating that grades and teacher immediacy could work in tandem in generating student intrinsic motivation.