Exploring Novice Secondary EFL Teachers' Motivation Change

Novice teachers,who are at the first year of teaching,are always confronted with the gap between their teaching beliefs and the actual teaching practices.The complexities of teaching often lead to their feelings of frustration and loss,even the total withdrawal from teaching.Due to the distinctiveness of language teaching,novice English teachers tend to face more difficulties in their first year of teaching.Consequently,they are more likely to experience motivational ups and downs.Previous literature on teacher motivation mainly focus on examining influencing factors of teacher motivation,teacher motivation and student motivation,and teacher motivation and teaching effectiveness.Few studies have explored teachers'motivation change from a comprehensive and dynamic perspective.In addition,the aforementioned studies focus on researching pre-service teachers' motivation change in pre-service teacher education programs.Thus,even less attention has been paid to novice teachers.Using Engestrom's(1987)second generation of activity theory as theoretical framework,the present study aims to explore two novice secondary school English teachers' changes of teaching motivation in their first year of teaching through case analysis.Furthermore,it intends to reveal the inner contradictions novice teachers experienced and how they reacted to such contradictionsBased on the data collected,the research concludes:Firstly,novice teachers'motivations were characteristic of dynamic changes in the first year of teaching;Secondly,novice teachers experienced different types of contradictions which decreased their teaching motivation to varying degrees;Thirdly,novice teachers could exhibit professional agency and use reflective practices as mediational tools to reconcile various contradictions.Theoretically,the present research proves activity theory is a comprehensive framework for analyzing teachers' motivation changes Pedagogically,the implication is that school administrators and education institutions should create a supportive environment which can enhance their teaching motivation.