Motivation as One of the Personality Factors Contributing to Success in the FL Classroom

Abstract

The aim of my thesis is to investigate how teachers and students perceive the concept of “motivation” in Armenia as well as how to motivate and what motivates students to achieve success in foreign language learning. It also indicates that teacher and student motivation changes over time, thereby necessitating a well-informed focus on what the dominant type of motivation is that triggers students to learn English in the Armenian setting. The purpose of the present research was to attempt a well-informed understanding of motivation and achievement from the student’s perspective. Specifically, the research focused on the type of motivation used in the Armenian setting, its changes over time and learners’ success in learning English. The proposed research was conducted using qualitative research methods. The needed data were collected through questionnaires, constructed for both teachers and students, and by means of semi-structured interviews with teachers and students that were meant to serve as my research instruments. I constructed two different questionnaires: one for teachers and the other for students. The level of difficulty of questions was different. Teacher and student questionnaires and interviews were piloted among friends and colleagues who are English teachers in different secondary schools. Students, engaged in the study, were not only students of the 9th and 10thgrades but also students of different grades, even undergraduate students. The selection of these students of varying ages (15-21 year-old students) was done with the aim of getting more in-depth descriptive data on FL learning, motivation and achievement from these students’ perspective. Thus, it was necessary for me to target about thirty students and fifteen teachers for conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews using survey questionnaires. The results through the qualitative method of data collection based on questionnaire completion and interview participation were presented through the discussion of findings related to the investigation of how teachers and learners in Armenia perceive the notion of motivation in the FL teaching/learning process, the role they ascribe to motivation, how their motivation changes over time and how learners’ motivation is related to their success in learning English as well as the importance of some factors that affect EFL teacher motivation and some related facets of the issue.