A Case Study Of A Novice Teacher’s And An Experienced Teacher’s Motivational Strategies In Middle School English Classroom Teaching

The teachers’ motivational strategies are generally believed to improve students’learning motivation. And people tend to think that experienced English teachers dobetter in the aspects of understanding and implementing motivational strategies thannovice English teachers, yet actually few empirical studies have been done to explorethe similarities and differences of these two kinds of teachers’ motivational strategies inmiddle school English classroom teaching. This study is based on D rnyei’s (2001)framework for motivational strategies. Through a case study of a novice teacher’s andan experienced teacher’s motivational strategies in middle school English classroomteaching, the paper aims to explore (1) the similarities and differences between thenovice teacher’s and the experienced teacher’s perception about motivational strategieswhich were divided into10categories;(2) the similarities and differences between thenovice teacher’s and the experienced teacher’s use of motivational strategies in middleschool English classroom teaching. In this study, teachers’ perception aboutmotivational strategies was examined with questionnaires. And classroom observationwas utilized to explore their actual use of motivational strategies in middle schoolEnglish classroom teaching. Besides, interviews with the two teachers were adopted to further explore teachers’ perception about motivational strategies, their motivationalpractice as well as checking the consistency and accuracy of the recording. The resultsshowed that in the aspects of motivational strategies the experienced English teacheremphasized the importance of encouraging students, group norms as well ascooperation while the novice English teacher focused on promoting individualdevelopment and teaching integrative value of English. Consequently, the assumptionthat experienced English teachers do better than novice English teachers in the aspectsof motivational strategies is not totally true. Besides, both experienced English teachersand novice English teachers have underutilized some motivational strategies. Whileexperienced English teachers may have a better knowledge and application in mostaspects of motivational strategies, novice English teachers could also do better in certainaspects.