PHAM KHAC THOI - LIT REVIEW

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES IN L2 TEACHING INTRODUCTION One of the subjects that have attracted the most effort and time budget of celebrated linguists in the past decades is motivation This umbrella term refers to the causes and origins of actions (Dornyei, 2001) According to Ur (2012), motivation is divided into five categories, including integrative motivation which urges learners to fit in an English-speaking community; instrumental motivation which pushes learners through the learning process in order to gain educational or material benefits; extrinsic motivation which mentions the effects that success and failure have on learners; intrinsic motivation and self and personal identity It is generally believed that engaging students into lessons is the key determinant of academic success or failure (Dornyei, 2001) In a research study, Dornyei and Guilloteaux (2007) stated that motivation is a considerable contributor to the initiation and maintenance of the second language learning process Because of its vital role in second language acquisition, motivation has been the subject of numerous recent studies in the field of linguistics A retrospective look at the development of motivation reveals that traditionally, researchers paid much more attention to how to define this term It was not until the 1990s that preliminary research was carried out to examine how motivation could be applied in the classroom setting This gave rise to the emergence of the significance of motivational strategies According to Dornyei (2001), these are “techniques that promote the individual’s goal related behavior” (p.?) and “influences that help learners to achieve some systematic and enduring positive effects” (p?) The research into motivational measures is a major contributing factor to facilitating teachers in engaging their students in their lessons, creating a comfortable and active classroom atmosphere and thus creating more productive teaching This literature review is organized in the following procedures First, background information on motivation and motivational strategies is presented, followed by the framework and the perspectives from which motivational strategies were viewed After that, the most effective practices withdrawn from different studies are compared and contrasted Following this is a discussion of major methodological issues Finally, implications for future research and education are mentioned METHOD Right from the beginning, it happened to me that a clear method of searching for materials was of vital importance in the process of writing a literature review, so a great deal of thought was put on it The first consideration would be the topic of research, which has been stated at the beginning of the literature as motivational strategies in L2 teaching My adoption of the topic could be justified by my interest and its significance in my field Having identified the topic, I moved on to the searching phase To serve the searching purpose, a list of key words was created, including motivation, motivational strategies in L2 teaching, motivational practices by teachers and motivational strategies from different perspectives These phrases were then typed into scholar.google.com, which is one of the most reliable search engines when it comes to looking for authoritative academic texts Sciencedirect.com is another high-quality option Because thousands of results were displayed, a set of criteria, whose components were the prestige, the relevance and the time of publication The reputation of the author, the journal and the article was were? easily checked by respectively reading their biographies, going to scimagojr.com and checking the frequency of citation in other works To investigate whether an article was topic-related, the abstract was carefully examined Regarding the time of publication, those articles published within the last five years were prioritized Having taken several inclusion and exclusion criteria into account, I selected four articles which best met my requirements to serve as the materials for this literature review OVERVIEWS OF ARTICLES The first article that I decided to investigate is the work byThe first article reviewed is the one by Dornyei and Guilloteaux (2008) One of the urges to choose this article is that one of the two authors, Dornyei, is a worldcelebrated psycholinguist whose renowned works focus on motivation in second language learning In their study, they tried to examine the relationship between the students’ level of motivation reported by themselves, how they behaved in the classroom and teachers’ motivational practices Also, they aimed to explore how influential teacher’s motivational measures were to students’ motivation The site of the study was 20 coed and single sex junior high schools in South Korea, whose 1,381 students took part in the two-phase research The study made use of three instruments, one of which was the MOLT Classroom Observation Scheme, which was used to assess students’ level of engagement in the classroom activities in terms of attention, participation and volunteering; and included 25 teachers’ motivational behaviors A 20item questionnaire was also distributed to each participant and a postlesson teacher evaluation scale was immediately completed after each lesson by teachers After all the instruments had been available, the study was conducted through two stages Firstly, a piloting was conducted to test and modify the three instruments in terms of wording, clarity and accuracy This is followed by the main study which took place during the course of last months of the first semester of the 2003-2004 academic year Before each of the 40 classes involved in the study started, questionnaires were delivered to students, followed by minute-by-minute written records of classroom activities, and the process culminated in the completion of the teacher evaluation scale after every lesson Once the data have been analyzed, the author came to the following findings Firstly, teachers’ motivational practices during class strongly affect student’s motivated behaviors Another finding is that students’ selfreported motivation somehow influence their in-class motivated behaviors Thirdly, teachers’ motivational practices influence the general appreciation of the whole course It is obvious that there exists a relationship between the study’s findings and the topic of this literature review As can be seen from the findings of the study, the motivational strategies applied by teachers during their lessons positively influence students’ attitudes towards the lessons and the whole learning process In other words, the study confirms the effectiveness of teachers’ behaviors when it comes to engaging students in the lessons as well as the entire course Another study was carried out by Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014), seeking to identify the most and the least effective motivational measures performed by teachers from students’ perspectives All tThe 314 pre-intermediate EFL students involved in their study came from a Turkish state university, and they were 17-to-22–year–olds The instruments used in the study consisted of two-part questionnaires and interviews The first part of the former was designed to obtain demographic about the participants while the second part contained 62 teachers’ motivating behaviors suggested from students’ answers to the open-ended questions administered to them at the beginning of the term, consultation with co-workers and some prestigious works and a piloting period To achieve deeper insight and enhance validity and reliability, the author held interviews with 19 students who had been informed of the questions in advance After the process of data collection and analysis, the authors reported some findings Firstly, a glance at the results from the questionnaires and the interviews reveals that the presence of a smile on the face and offering intervals during class is hailed as the most engaging activity from the eyes of students Meanwhile, the interviews and questionnaires bear inconsistent results, with the overwhelming use of English and the attachment of too much significance to seating arrangement being recorded as the two least motivating behaviors according to the questionnaires; and the frequent administering of homework and the preliminary clarifying of objectives at the beginning of the lesson being reported as exerting the least effect on students’ motivational level The results of the study to some extent shed light on the topic The researchers made an attempt to clarify the effectiveness of 62 motivational items from the students’ view, and the findings were satisfying in that they provided the items with the most and the least motivational influences on students The third article to be included in this literature review is the work by Wong (2013), investigating the frequency of use of several motivational items in the Chinese context and measuring the effectiveness of these practices from the view of teachers, students and researchers The study obtained the participation of roughly 900 students and 80 teachers of theirs whose ages ranged from mid twenties to late forties and whose years of experience ranged from to 26 They all came from Years 7-9 in five normal secondary schools in Hong Kong The research made use of five instruments, namely the teacher motivational strategies questionnaires designed to outline the frequency of certain motivational practices employed; the pre-project teacher interviews to gain further explanations as to the reasons for their use of certain motivational strategies; the Motivational Strategies Effectiveness (MSE) observation scheme wherein the author observed classes and made assessment on the leaners’ motivated behaviors and the effectiveness of 25 motivational behaviors derived from the above-mentioned questionnaires and interviews; the student motivation questionnaires designed to examine the effectiveness of teachers’ situational motivational strategies from the learners’ perspectives; and teacher post-lesson evaluation scales which were immediately completed after each class by teachers to give them a chance to reflect on the effectiveness of their own motivational behaviors Once all the instruments had been available, the study was carried out in five phases In the first step, motivational strategies were identified from questionnaires and interviews with teachers This was followed by a piloting of the MSE observation scheme The study was then proceeded with lesson observations, wherein the author investigated the effectiveness of motivational strategies employed by the teacher, and so did the students and the teacher by filling in questionnaires The same procedures were carried out in the fourth stage after one month and in the fifth stage within two months after the fourth After the whole process came to an end, the data were collected, analyzed and yielded some results corresponding to the research questions Firstly, regarding the frequency of motivational behaviors, the top five most commonly used ones were: (1) delivering rewards; (2) giving tasks to small groups; (3) exhibiting and promoting humor; (4) changing seating arrangement; (5) providing students with enough preparation and support Secondly, in terms of the effectiveness of motivational strategies as a whole, they were most effective to teachers, not as effective to researchers and the least effective to students Finally, students and teachers reached a consensus that reward-giving was the most effective teacher-originated behavior while the researcher ranked it second only to the practice of making sure that students receive enough preparation and assistance These findings by Wong (2013) firmly establishes the common ground between this article and the overall topic of this literature review While the topic refers to how effective some motivational activities are in the classroom setting, Wong pointed out that the most influential teacheroriginated behavior is reward-delivering in the view of teachers and students and the certainty that students receive enough support and preparation in the author’s perspective The last article to be reviewed is the one by Cheng and Dornyei (2007), which has been cited as framework of many studies in the field The study described in the article was carried out with a view to examining the importance and frequency of certain motivational strategies and the possible relationship between them in the Taiwanese context In this study, the diversity of the participants was greatly enhanced by the involvement of 387 teachers whose genders are male, female and unidentified, and whose teaching sites ranged from elementary schools to universities in various parts of Taiwan Their instructional experience and educational background were also varied While a small minority of participating teachers had less than one year’s experience, nearly half of them had been teaching for more than 20 years It is also noticeable that one quarter of them had previously experienced overseas study The study made use of two instruments, both of which were self-reported questionnaires and contained 48 motivational items These items were short-listed from more than 100 strategies proposed by Dornyei (2001) after a piloting period with the participation of 19 English teachers and were categorized into ten clusters During the study, questionnaires were sent to participants by mail and the response rate was high After receiving responses, the authors went on to analyze the data and then produced the results to the research questions put forward Firstly, the study revealed that appropriate teacher’s behaviors are at the top of the list of importance, followed by the recognition of students’ effort and success Meanwhile, the arousing of learner’s self-confidence is in the third place and the promotion of learner’s autonomy was the least important These first three clusters mentioned above are also the most widely used by teachers With regards to the relationship between the importance and frequency, the study found that making the learning tasks stimulating is the most underused when compared with its level of importance There is a firm connection between the findings of this article with the topic of the literature review The article attempted to rank the teacher’s motivational behaviors according to their level of importance In other words, the effectiveness of these practices were measured, which exactly matches with the general topic of this writing DISCUSSION OF ARTICLES MOTIVATION AND MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES When it comes to the role of motivation in L2 teaching and learning, the four articles seem to find some common ground It is generally suggested that motivation plays a crucial role in improving classroom atmosphere, boosting the students’ morale and thus enhancing their academic performance This importance was raised in Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008), wherein they likened motivation to the primary impetus to generate the learning process and the driving force to maintain this process They also added that motivation is a major contributor to students’ achievement of long-term goals, which is further enhanced in Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014) A retrospective look, however, reveals that initially, linguists focused more on the definition and overlooked the pedagogical implications in the classroom It was not until 1990s that the major/a majority of research examining the motivational behaviors performed by teachers emerged, and since then, researchers have been tapping into this area, providing lists of motivational strategies with little discrepancy Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) Despite a growing popularity of research into motivation strategies, the number doesn’t unlikely seems to meet the demands This pressing need for more studies conducted in motivational strategies ? (a complete sentence?) FRAMEWORK It is universally believed that framework is an indispensable part in any scientific research A glance at this part of the four articles illustrates that they all made use ofadapted the one by Dornyei (2001) as the theoretical base to some extent In this work, four clusters of effective motivational strategies were identified, consisting of 102 motivational strategies, some of which were selected to be included in questionnaires of the articles being reviewed Respectively in Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) and Cheng and Dornyei (2007), 25 and 48 items were picked out to form questionnaires while in Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014), Dornyei (2001) was one of the sources of reference when they short-listed the number of teacher motivating behaviors suggested from questionnaires to 88 The fact that Dornyei’ framework (2001) was chosen as the theoretical background can be justified by his reputation as one of the leading authority in the field of psycholinguistics as well as by the comprehensiveness of the work THE PERSPECTIVES The studies in the four articles provided readers with the effectiveness of what teachers could to get their students involved in their lessons, and this was perceived from different perspectives Wong (2014) attempted to clarify the productiveness of teachers’ motivating behaviors through the eyes of students, researchers and teachers themselves, which created a well-rounded understanding into the matter being discussed While Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) explored how influential teachers’ motivating practices were to arousing students’ motivation through the judgment of learners and researchers, Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014) and Cheng and Dornyei (2007) were carried out to serve the similar purpose through the eyes of students and teachers respectively It is obvious that the more parties are involved in the assessment of the effectiveness, the more diversified the outlook is and the greater validity and reliability the study produces THE MOST MOTIVATING BEHAVIORS The core to this review is to find out which practices are the most productive when applied in the classroom In terms of this, different studies bore different results While Cheng and Dornyei (2007) suggested that appropriate teacher behaviors would be the most effective in stimulating the students’ learning process, Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014) concluded that a smile on the face of the teacher would be the best way to so This discrepancy between the two results could be attributed to the fact that they were carried out in different countries and asked for opinions from different sides, with the former undertaken in the Taiwanese context and obtaining the judgment from teachers and the latter being conducted in the European country of Turkey and reflecting the view of students Wong (2014) provided another idea of effective measures While students and teachers reached a consensus that the extrinsic strategy of reward-offering is the best option, the researcher put the most emphasis on making sure that learners gain enough assistance and preparation The offering of reward is also used on the most frequent basis by teachers, which is totally comprehensible given the fact that it is the most productive in their eyes Also, they explained that such small gifts as candy are seen by students as trophies and recognition of their effort Unlike these studies, Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) didn’t did not go into details, stating that generally, teachers’ motivational behaviors strongly and positively influence the degree of motivation among learners METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES PILOTING Piloting is of crucial important is empirical studies to check the validity, comprehensibility and reliability of instruments, especially questionnaires and questions in the interviews before applying them in the main phase It is sometimes carried out with a view to familiarize authors with the instruments In the four research projects mentioned, the main studies were always preceded by a period of piloting whose subjects were excluded from the later step CLASSROOM OBSERVATION Decades ago, scholars began to be more enthusiastic about how motivation worked in an actual classroom, thus conceptualizing motivational strategies Therefore, there is no doubt about the fact that the effectiveness of certain motivational practices should be measured in a classroom context, which many studies in the field have failed to In other words, questionnaires and interviews alone might lead to subjective results due to the lack of empirical data Being aware of that, Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) and Wong (2014) observed classes and recorded the effectiveness themselves In contrast, Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014) and Cheng and Dornyei (2007) excluded this activity from their procedures A closer investigation, however, suggests this seemingly pitiful shortcoming could be justified by the fact that they attempted to explore the matter from the perspective of teachers and students, instead of from the critical judgment of their own THE REPETITION OF OBSERVATION According to Dornyei (2003, as cited in article 3), motivational level may change dramatically over time Therefore, it is important that observation should be repeated at different points of time in order to obtain reliable results Wong (2014) carried out the study in five phases, the last three of which were lesson observations with the same subjects at different times The other research project by Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2007) whereby an observation was employed failed to this IMPLICATION FOR EDUCATION The aim of this review of the effectiveness of motivational strategies is to provide teachers a variety of activities which they could undertake to improve the classroom atmosphere and providing more highly regarded lessons, thus enhancing their students’ academic performance Having familiarized themselves with the most productive measures, teachers now have a chance to reflect on their own teaching and identify areas where they have been doing well and what needs to be improved to get their students absorb in their lessons They are probably acquainted with the use of some of the mentioned strategies, it is likely that they not have a theoretical framework to base on IMPLICATONS FOR FUTURE STUDY In light the review of the four article, it is obvious that the most effective strategies vary from one study to another, which might confuse those who want to bring them into practice In simple terms, teachers might be unsure about whether the integration of these recommended activities into their own teaching would be a fruitful effort Therefore, future studies are needed to explore the factors affecting the use of motivational strategies in the classroom The role of teacher’s experience, class size, the time budget, students’ level and many others in the adoption of certain motivating activities should be clarified CONCLUSION The fact that motivation is an integral part in the academic success of learners is widely recognized in many works in the field of linguistics, an typical of which is Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) However, it was only about three decades ago that scholars started to attach much importance to its application in an actual classroom, which was conceptualized as motivational strategies At first, efforts were made to identify a range of activities that could trigger students’ interest in the lesson Soon after that, researchers were more enthusiastic about testing the effectiveness of these suggested practices A number of works have been carried out in this vein, including Cheng and Dornyei (2007), Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008), Olmezer Ozturk and Ok (2014) and Wong (2014) This review of these four studies acts as a contribution to the clarification of the aforementioned topic In this review, background information of motivation and motivational strategies is provided, followed by the overview of the four studies, the discussion of the framework, the perspectives from which motivational strategies were viewed and the most effective measures The methodological issues, the implications for future research and education are also elaborated It is expected that this review could be of great help to those interested in learning more about motivational strategies in general and their effectiveness in particular REFERENCES Cheng, H.-F., & Dornyei, Z (2007) The use of motivational strategies in language instruction: the case of EFL teaching in Taiwan Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1, 153-174 doi: 10.2167/illt048.0 Dornyei, Z (2001) Background knowledge Motivational strategies in the language classroom (pp 6) The United States of America: Cambridge University Press Dornyei, Z (2001) Background knowledge Motivational strategies in the language classroom (pp 2) The United States of America: Cambridge University Press Dornyei, Z (2001) Background knowledge Motivational strategies in the language classroom (pp 28) The United States of America: Cambridge University Press Guilloteaux, M.J., & Dornyei, Z (2008) Motivating language learners: a classroom-oriented investigation of the effects of motivational strategies on student motivation Tesol Quarterly, 42(1), 55-77 Olmezer Ozturk, E., & Ok, S (2014) Motivational behaviors of teachers in Turkish EFL classes: perception of students Journal Language and Linguistic Studies, 10(2), 120-133 Ur, P (2012) English teaching today: what I need to know? A course in English language teaching (pp 10) United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press Wong, R.M.H (2014) An investigation of strategies for student motivation in the Chinese EFL context Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 8, 132-154 doi: 10.1080/17501229.2013.777449 ... tThe 314 pre-intermediate EFL students involved in their study came from a Turkish state university, and they were 17-to-22–year–olds The instruments used in the study consisted of two-part questionnaires... process of writing a literature review, so a great deal of thought was put on it The first consideration would be the topic of research, which has been stated at the beginning of the literature as motivational... to serve as the materials for this literature review OVERVIEWS OF ARTICLES The first article that I decided to investigate is the work byThe first article reviewed is the one by Dornyei and Guilloteaux