Motivational Teaching Strategies

Most L2 motivation research aims ultimately to provide insights for teachers of languages, and much that happens in a classroom has the potential to affect learner motivation, but this chapter focusses specifically on the strategies that teachers consciously use to maintain or increase their learners’ motivation. It first reviews the research based on Dörnyei’s (2001) comprehensive framework of motivational teaching strategies, and offers a summary of the findings in regard to the strategies favoured by language teachers and learners, and evidence for their efficacy in improving learner engagement. The chapter then goes on to critique the notion of a ‘motivational strategy’ and to propose some alternative ways that researchers might try to expand our understanding of what makes for a motivational L2 pedagogy, for example by investigating teachers’ motivational ‘thinking-in-action’ and examining the subtleties of learners’ responses to teaching.