Teachers’ Use of Macro/microstrategies across Teaching Experience: Impacts on Learners’ Motivation

Motivating language learners is acknowledged to be a complex socially-constructed process that correlates well with successful L۲ development and among the different obstacles that may demotivate classroom learners is various aspects of the instructional contexts. Hence, experts have suggested a set of macro/microstrategies that might be employed to enhance learners’ motivation, and thereby, involvement and learning. However, the extent to which teacher characteristics like experience can influence their use of such macro/microstrategies and the degree that they may correlate with learners’ motivation and also the difference between the motivation of students taught by novice and experienced teachers is still unknown. The difference in the use of macro strategies among experienced and novice teachers has already been analyzed and mentioned in another on-going study. Therefore, for the purpose of this study, a cluster sample of ۲۰ teachers, ۱۰ experienced and ۱۰ novices, along with ۲۰۰ EFL learners in their classes were randomly selected from two renowned language institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The research data were collected through a validated researcher-made observation form and a motivation questionnaire. Moreover, a set of interview questions were devised aiming to examine the learners’ opinions regarding their teacher’s use of micro strategies and its influence on their motivation. The data obtained from the motivation scale administered to the participating learners were averaged for each class and the class averages in motivation were correlated with the results of the observation form. The result of Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient confirmed a statistically significant negative correlation between motivation and Contextualized Input for novice teachers. In the experienced teachers’ group, motivation was highly negatively correlated with Contextualized Input and Integrated Language Skills. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between Maximizing Learning Opportunities and motivation for experienced teachers. The independent samples t-tests revealed no difference between the motivation of learners taught by novice and experienced teachers. However, none of these correlations was statistically significant due to the small sample size.

Keywords:

Macrostrategies , Microstrategies , Motivation , Teaching Experience