Students' Motivation for Verbal Communication in the Classroom

• Main Author: Johansson, Emelie
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö högskola, Lärarutbildningen (LUT) 2010
• Subjects: Communicative Language Teaching; Instrumental & Integrative Motivation; Self-Efficacy; Speaking Anxiety; Willingness to Communicate; Social Sciences; Samhällsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-34840

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore what underlying factors play into students´ motivation towards participating in verbal communication in the classroom. The first aim is to find out what the students themselves express and believe motivates them to learn spoken English, and the second aim is to find out what the students feel hinders them from engaging in verbal communication in the classroom. This qualitative study is based on questionnaires followed by group interviews with students who were selected as a result of the survey. The study was carried out at an upper secondary school in southern Sweden in the courses English A and B. The results show that the students are motivated both by the relevance of English for their future studies and professions as well as the will to identify with English speaking cultures, thus showing a combination of instrumental and integrative motivation. The students also express elements such as speaking anxiety and group size to be a hindrance in their language learning. In addition, several points were made regarding how the teacher might help the students participate more in oral communication through for example arranging smaller groups, only allowing English and having more speaking exercises in class.