Motivational Strategies in the English Classroom: The Case of Arab Learners in Israel

Decline in students’ motivation to learn languages remains a vexing issue for teachers and educators. Among a myriad of factors that affect student motivation, teachers’ practices appear to play a very dominant role. This has been reflected in the rising number of studies that ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Faris Keblawi*
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Tayfun Yagar 2020-08-01
Series:International Journal of Educational Methodology
Subjects:
Online Access: https://ijem.com//IJEM_6_3_579.pdf
Description
Summary:Decline in students’ motivation to learn languages remains a vexing issue for teachers and educators. Among a myriad of factors that affect student motivation, teachers’ practices appear to play a very dominant role. This has been reflected in the rising number of studies that examine teachers’ motivational strategies. This study aims to determine the specific teacher strategies which are most likely to positively affect the motivation of Arab learners of English from the perspective of learners. Some 400 teenage learners of English responded to an open-ended question in which they were asked to freely describe the strategies their teachers used that motivated them to learn. The results of the study suggest that the majority of students prefer strategies that promote communicative uses of the language to ones that focus on grammar or emphasize learning through texts. Many students also reported that they had more interest in studying English when their teachers integrated technology. It is therefore recommended that teachers give more weight to these motivating strategies by incorporating more communicative use of English and more technology into their lessons.
ISSN:2469-9632
2469-9632