Action research in the language classroom: Motivating teenage learners

1. Action research in the language classroom: Motivating teenage learners Carolyn Leslie (British Council)

2. Why motivation is complex • Why people decide to do something • How long they are willing to sustain the activity • How hard they are going to pursue it • Language learning involves social and cultural issues.

3. Four theories of motivation in SLA • Tremblay and Gardner’s revised model • Linguistic self-confidence • Attribution theory • Self-determination theory

4. Common themes • Goal-setting • Learner autonomy • Self-confidence

5. Goal Setting • Elementary level • Individual, group, long or short term • Language or behaviour goals • Clear, specific, measurable • Initially set goals for students • Challenge themselves

6. Short term goals • When and how much English to use • Number of new words to record in vocabulary records • Number of questions to ask/answer • Listening to others

7. Self- confidence and learner autonomy • Self assessment/teacher assessment • Comparison to previous achievements • Praise • Focus on improvement • Lack of success • Learning strategies improve self-confidence

8. Questionnaire results • 77% agreed or strongly agreed they spoke more English because they set goals for speaking. • 69% agreed or strongly agreed that trying to achieve the goals helped them improve their English. • 92% agreed or strongly agreed that self-assessment was useful because it helped them think about what they did in class each week. • 92% agreed that comments from the teacher gave them more confidence to try harder in class.

9. Comments in answer to open questions. • Setting goals gave me an objective and made me think more about speaking English. • When I focus on my goals I take a more active role. • When I try to achieve my goals I know my difficulties better and try to improve. • Self assessment is useful because I know what I do well and not so well and can improve next lesson. • I spoke more Portuguese when I didn’t set goals.

10. Conclusion • Advantage of being teacher/researcher • What motivates one student may not motivate others • Work in progress