Motivational Strategies Used By College English Teachers In Classrooms: A Case Study

Motivation is acknowledged to be one of the important factors influencing the second/foreign language achievements. As most second/foreign language learning is carried out in classrooms, the skills to motivate learners in classrooms are crucial for language teachers. This study investigates the motivational strategies used by college English teachers in the classroom. It aims to explore teachers' beliefs of motivational strategies, the relationship between their beliefs and application of motivational strategies, and students' perception of the actual use.Based on Dornyei & Csizer's (1998) strategy scales, ten categories of motivational strategies were adopted in the study. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews and classroom observations of five college English teachers of Dezhou University, and a questionnaire survey with their students. The interviews of the teachers centered around teachers' beliefs of motivational strategies, including beliefs about teachers' behavior, climate, task, rapport, self-confidence, interest, autonomy, goal, group, and culture, and their application of these strategies in classrooms. Classroom observation was made to examine the participant teachers' actual practice of motivational strategies in classrooms. The investigation of their students aimed to find out the degree of consistency between teachers' reported application of motivational strategies with their students'perception.The results show that teachers highlight the importance of using motivational strategies. Eight categories of motivational strategies are used at high frequency including teachers'behavior, rapport, culture, task, autonomy, self-confidence, interest, and climate, while goal and group are used at middle frequency. The teachers reach a consensus on the importance of most aspects of motivational strategies, and have only slightly different opinions of the effect of teachers' behavior, group and culture. All of them try to use various strategies to motivate students in the classroom, and most of their applications of strategies are consistent with their beliefs, except for a few small gaps in the aspects of climate, interest, autonomy and goal. Moreover, teachers'use of motivational strategies is found to be basically consistent with their students'perception.Based on the study, ten guidelines of motivational strategies are provided and some suggestions are made for both college teachers and administrators. College teachers should also reflect and strengthen their beliefs and application of motivational strategies in classroom, use various motivational strategies and strengthen communication and cooperation with students and colleague teachers. College administrators should increase opportunities of teacher training and provide a working place for college teachers to promote teacher-student and teacher-teacher communication.