2.1 Studies based on Dörnyei's (Reference Dörnyei2001) taxonomy

Whichever kind of classroom teachers occupy, most will have at some time or other employed strategies to boost their learners’ motivation. This section focuses on research which directly investigates the prevalence and, in some cases, the effectiveness of these kinds of practical decisions. Dörnyei & Ushioda (Reference Dörnyei and Ushioda2011: 103) define MotS as instructional techniques deployed ‘to consciously generate and enhance student motivation, as well as maintain ongoing motivated behaviour and protect it from distracting and/or competing action tendencies.’ This research has its origins in the The Modern Language Journal debates of the mid-1990s, in which a new generation of academics, concerned to make L2 motivation research more useful to education, were challenged by Gardner & Tremblay (Reference Gardner and Tremblay1994) to produce empirical evidence to support their claims that teachers could positively affect their pupils’ motivation. Dörnyei & Csizér's (Reference Dörnyei and Csizér1998) pioneering study of the views of Hungarian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers was published just in time for inclusion in the last ‘State-of-the-Art’ review of L2 motivation (Dörnyei Reference Dörnyei1998). Their ‘10 Commandments for Motivating Language Learners’ represented groups of teaching techniques which Hungarian teachers claimed to use to motivate their pupils. Drawing on this study and on relevant theories of educational psychology, Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei2001) expanded the list into a full taxonomy of 102 MotS (sometimes termed micro-strategies), grouped into 35 main strategies (or macro-strategies) and organized according to where in the teaching process they would likely be deployed, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Dörnyei's (Reference Dörnyei2001) taxonomy of motivational strategies

The clarity and comprehensiveness of Dörnyei's MotS framework attracted researchers to validate it empirically, first his own doctoral students (Cheng & Dörnyei Reference Cheng and Dörnyei2007; Guilloteaux & Dörnyei Reference Guilloteaux and Dörnyei2008) and then those beyond his immediate orbit (e.g. Sugita & Takeuchi Reference Sugita McEown and Takeuchi2010). Table 1 presents the most important research so far published. It shows how studies have become steadily more ambitious in their aims and more sophisticated in their approach, addressing some of the conceptual and methodological difficulties laid out by Gardner & Tremblay (Reference Gardner and Tremblay1994). The most straightforward type of study samples the views of teachers on the relative importance and frequency of use of given MotS (e.g. Cheng & Dörnyei Reference Cheng and Dörnyei2007; also see Guilloteaux Reference Guilloteaux2013). Other studies do this but also compare teachers’ views with those of students (e.g. Sugita McEown & Takeuchi Reference Sugita McEown and Takeuchi2014; also see Sugita McEown & Takeuchi Reference Sugita McEown and Takeuchi2010 and Ruesch, Bown & Dewey Reference Ruesch, Bown and Dewey2012). More sophisticated are those studies which actually evaluate the motivational effectiveness of MotS in terms of learners’ behaviour in class and their self-reported motivation (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei Reference Guilloteaux and Dörnyei2008; Papi & Abdollahzadeh Reference Papi and Abdollahzadeh2012; Wong Reference Wong2014). The most ambitious of all are the quasi-experiments (Moskovsky et al. Reference Moskovsky, Alrabai, Paolini and Ratcheva2012; Alrabai Reference Alrabai2016) which identify a set of contextually promising MotS, train teachers in using them, and then compare their motivational effects on classes of students against that of traditional teaching. This last type of study has only been conducted in Saudi Arabia to date, possibly because of the difficulties of gaining ethical approval in many contexts.

Table 1

Studies of language teachers’ MotS use, based on Dörnyei's Reference Dörnyei2001 framework

What have we learned so far? Some macro-strategies do appear to be valued universally by teachers and learners; these include displaying appropriate teacher behaviour (or ‘setting a good example’), fostering good teacher–student relations and promoting learner self-confidence. Instilling these principles in novice language teachers may be time well spent, though how they are realized in particular classrooms is something that teachers will still have to work out ‘on the job’ (see Section 6.2). Furthermore, as Table 2 shows, there is disagreement about the relative importance of different macro-strategies. There is some evidence, for example, that promoting learner autonomy is considered less important by teachers in Asia, but Asian teachers themselves differ in their valuing of a cohesive learner group (much favoured by Taiwanese but not Koreans or Chinese) and ‘offering rewards’ (by far the most popular MotS among Chinese school teachers) (Cheng & Dörnyei Reference Cheng and Dörnyei2007; Guilloteaux Reference Guilloteaux2013; Wong Reference Wong2014). There is also evidence that teachers and students’ views differ; for instance, Ruesch et al. (Reference Ruesch, Bown and Dewey2012) found that university students see motivational value in comparing themselves to other students – a practice denigrated by their tutors trained in ‘cooperative’ learning principles.

Table 2

Teachers’ views of importance of motivational macro-strategies in five different national contexts

*Being based on single items in surveys, these should be considered micro- rather than macro-strategies.

This ‘competition vs cooperation’ dilemma neatly captures a fundamental problem in the MotS approach; Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei2001) himself seems to come down firmly on the side of ‘cooperation’, arguing that ‘there is nothing “healthy” about even a small dose of competition’ (p. 93), though in other sections he promotes the value of ‘intragroup competition’ (p. 44). Other work suggests that ‘competition within cooperation’ has the highest motivational value (Tauer & Harackiewicz Reference Tauer and Harackiewicz2004). The point is that it is simply not possible to reduce highly complex issues to pedagogical ‘dos or don'ts’. The successful motivator somehow learns when, where and how to deploy them in particular lessons.

Nevertheless, another major finding of this research is that MotS can work; that is, correlational studies show that they are associated with more motivated behaviour in class, in terms of paying attention and participating in class activities, and with more positive attitudes towards learning and the L2 (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei Reference Guilloteaux and Dörnyei2008; Papi & Abdollahzadeh Reference Papi and Abdollahzadeh2012). Admittedly, one can dispute what motivated classroom behaviour actually consists of (Ellis Reference Ellis2009, for example, proposes that ‘alertness’ would be a better criterion of engagement than ‘attention’), and correlation does not indicate a causal effect. But Guilloteaux & Dörnyei (Reference Guilloteaux and Dörnyei2008) point out that contrasting results for different (mixed-ability) classes in the same schools strongly suggests it is the teacher doing the motivating. Their argument has been strengthened by the subsequent quasi-experimental studies in which teachers specially trained in MotS produce positive changes in their learners’ motivation over the length of a course (Moskovsky et al. Reference Moskovsky, Alrabai, Paolini and Ratcheva2012) and even generate better L2 achievement, at least when compared to ‘traditional teaching’ as practised in Saudi Arabia (Alrabai Reference Alrabai2016).

Clearly, these are exciting results which merit further investigation. In particular, it would be valuable to see whether the deployment of particular MotS by L2 teachers have similar beneficial effects – on learner classroom behaviour, their longer-term motivation and, ultimately, on their achievement – in other global contexts. Education experts may be able to predict which MotS are lacking in, or would be especially valuable in, certain contexts, and these could be targeted by research. For example, we may find that the teaching of MFL in Anglophone countries requires different MotS than the teaching of English as an international language in non-Anglophone countries. Likewise, although cultural and educational traditions will continue to prove important in determining the value of MotS, there are likely to be more significant differences in the motivational needs of learners of different ages within a single country than between countries.

To build a knowledge base of use to educators, future research on MotS also needs to maintain conceptual clarity. Can we be sure that what an Iranian teacher or researcher means by (e.g.) ‘act naturally in front of students’ (Guilloteaux Reference Guilloteaux2013) is the same as what a Korean or American teacher or researcher means? It would seem sensible for research to focus on macro-strategies – general enough to have broad common meanings, and so enabling comparisons across settings – and allowing micro-strategies to be determined locally. So for instance a macro-strategy may relate to ‘Using classroom language sensitively’ – whether this means more use of the L2 (as in Saudi university classrooms, see Moskovsky et al. 2013) or less use of the L2 (as in Chinese elementary schools, see Rui & Chew Reference Rui and Chew2014), will depend on the particular pedagogic context under study.

2.2 Alternative approaches to MotS

There have been other attempts to classify and test out MotS in language education which are not based on the Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei2001) taxonomy. These contribute to our understanding of MotS, but also cast doubt on the value of trying to build a definitive list of motivational teaching behaviours. Bernaus & Gardner (Reference Bernaus and Gardner2008) divided motivational teaching strategies into ‘traditional’ (centred on the teacher's behaviour e.g. ‘I make my students do dictations’) and ‘innovative’ (based on a learner-centred methodology e.g. ‘my students do self-evaluation and co-evaluation’) and investigated their use in Spanish secondary school English classes. The results are significant for suggesting that ‘it is not the actual use of strategies but their perceived use that has an effect on motivation and achievement’ (p. 399). That is, classes of students and teachers do not always agree on whether strategies are being used, and the strategies may only serve to motivate if the students recognize and appreciate them – which they may not do if, for instance, they dislike the teacher's personality or lack any other motives for learning the L2. Meanwhile, in a study of EFL learners in Hungarian schools, Mezei (Reference Mezei, Csizér and Magid2014) found that teachers’ use of motivational strategies did not impact on learners’ motivation directly but was mediated by the Ideal L2 self and self-regulation. In other words, students with a strong Ideal L2 self (see Section 3.2) and self-regulatory capacity were better able to benefit from the MotS, suggesting that teachers need to work on these other learner qualities too.

Maeng & Lee (Reference Maeng and Lee2015) based their investigation on a different MotS framework, using Keller's ARCS model (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) to identify the strategies used by English teachers in micro-teaching sessions during in-service training in Korea. Their most noteworthy finding was that more experienced teachers used fewer strategies than less experienced teachers, again raising questions about how useful it is to categorize behaviours as positive or negative and then count their frequency. The study also draws our attention to the fact there are other potential frameworks for classifying MotS. Among the most significant is Williams & Burden's (Reference Williams and Burden1997) 12-point list, both because it is designed specifically for language teachers and because it has been elaborated on the basis of social constructivist learning theory. The general education literature provides other options, notably Anderman & Anderman (Reference Anderman and Anderman2010), Schunk, Meece & Pintrich (Reference Schunk, Meece and Pintrich2013) and Wentzel & Brophy (Reference Wentzel and Brophy2014).

Another approach to understanding MotS was taken by Lamb & Wedell (Reference Lamb and Wedell2015), who asked learners in China and Indonesia to reflect on the pedagogical qualities of inspiring language teachers they had had in the past. In this way they aimed to identify those aspects of L2 pedagogy that had a long-term motivational impact on learners, to complement the shorter-term perspective of MotS research. The most frequently cited qualities related to classroom practices, and again some systematic contextual differences were noted e.g. Indonesian learners valued teachers who made lessons entertaining, while Chinese learners were more appreciative of teachers who made lesson content interesting. However, they also found that about a third of comments related not to what teachers did but what they were like as persons, suggesting that personality can have a major long-term impact on individuals’ motivation to learn.

By focusing on the thinking and decision-making of individual teachers, qualitative researchers have begun to open up new perspectives on MotS. Glas (Reference Glas2015: 2), for example, deliberately eschews the use of a priori lists of MotS in order to take ‘a bottom-up approach towards understanding the role of teacher cognition and decision-making with respect to learner motivation’. What she finds is that Chilean teachers of English feel constrained in how far they can motivate their learners, both by limitations on many learners’ pre-existing motivation and by institutional and political restrictions on their ‘spaces for maneuver’ (e.g. in choice of materials, training opportunities, availability of IT). Nevertheless, some individual teachers do express more agency than others in developing their learners’ motivation, despite working in similar contexts. Investigating the beliefs and behaviours of eight successful ‘motivators’ in Indonesia, Lamb, Astuti & Hadisantosa (Reference Lamb, Astuti, Hadisantosa, Apple, Da Silva and Fellner2017) locate the source of their agency in their persistent willingness and ability to empathize with their learners – so while macro-strategies like ‘developing a close rapport with students’ and ‘providing enjoyable activities’ are valued by all, their classroom realization will differ according to language level, age, geographical location and other student factors, as well as the teachers’ own training and experience. They suggest that it can take years of reflective practice, as well as a high level of daily commitment, to develop this nuanced response to the needs of individuals and classes.

The weakness of the strategies approach to understanding motivational teaching has been well articulated by Ushioda (Reference Ushioda and Benson2007); it shares with much traditional L2 motivation research, she argues, a positivist, linear model of educational processes, in particular ‘a tendency to view pedagogical interventions in terms of methods or strategies, and to view motivation as the product in a chain of cause and effect’ (p. 23). Adopting a ‘person-in-context relational approach’ (Ushioda Reference Ushioda, Dörnyei and Ushioda2009), both the studies above, for example, serve to highlight the complexity of MotS and their inseparability from the relations of actual people in contexts of differing constraints and affordances. The categorization and listing of teaching behaviours could give the impression – to novice teachers, educational managers or other stakeholders – that ‘motivating’ is a matter of the teacher deploying the correct strategies, when in fact it is an intensely interactive process, where motivating lessons emerge (sometimes surprisingly) from the coming together and intense mutual engagement from moment to moment of teacher and learners. It is perhaps this capacity for responsiveness, relying on the personal quality of empathy but also built up over years of practice, which defines the successful motivator. This line of argument will be developed further in Section 6.3.

3.1 SDT

Originally formulated by Deci &Ryan (Reference Deci and Ryan1985), SDT is one of the most enduring theories of motivation, actively applied in a wide range of human activities from education through healthcare to management, supported by a flourishing website (www.selfdeterminationtheory.org) and popularized in bestselling paperbacks (Pink Reference Pink2009). The theory is perhaps best known for elaborating the binary distinction between intrinsic motivation, where people learn because they enjoy the process of learning, extrinsic motivation, where they are doing it not for its own sake but for some alterior motive, which can be more or less ‘external’ i.e. from very externalized (e.g. to avoid punishment) to very internalized (e.g. doing it because it is part of ‘who you are’). In educational settings, the ideal scenario is where all pupils are intrinsically motivated to learn the subject, because then they will be naturally inclined to study hard, act responsibly and be receptive to new knowledge (Ryan & Deci Reference Ryan and Deci2000). In reality, this is unlikely to be the case, and SDT's key insight for teachers is that with skillful instruction, they can help to make their pupils’ motivation more intrinsic and more internalized. They can do this by trying to ensure that their classrooms satisfy three conditions necessary for human growth and learning: the need for autonomy (a feeling of being able to choose personally meaningful activities), for competence (a sense of gaining mastery of a subject area or skill) and for relatedness (feeling connected to and valued by others engaged in the activity).

As Stroet, Opdenakker & Minnaert's (Reference Stroet, Opdenakker and Minnaert2013) review article shows, there is now a wealth of research in general education showing that ‘need-supportive teaching’ does promote school age learners’ academic motivation, at least when students perceive the teaching in this way (similar to Bernaus & Gardner's Reference Bernaus and Gardner2008, previously mentioned finding about MotS). Attempts to apply SDT to L2 pedagogy were led by Noels and colleagues (Noels, Clément & Pelletier Reference Noels, Clément and Pelletier1999; Noels Reference Noels2001), who found that, in line with the theory, Spanish language teachers with a communicative style which supported their North American students’ sense of autonomy and competence tended to have learners with more intrinsic and internalized forms of motivation. In other words, when students perceive their teachers as giving them choice in what and how to learn, and as providing helpful friendly feedback on progress, they will be encouraged to put more effort into study. Noels (Reference Noels2001) speculated that such effects might be even stronger for school pupils, who are at a more impressionable age and usually interact more intensively with their teachers than university students.

Since those pioneering studies, a number of other researchers working in a variety of global contexts have confirmed the validity of this and other aspects of the theory. Carreira, Ozaki & Maeda (Reference Carreira, Ozaki and Maeda2014) investigated elementary school English classes in Japan and found that the children's perceptions of teacher autonomy support (e.g. the amount of praise and encouragement they give) contributed to their own sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness, and in turn their intrinsic motivation, especially in the middle grades (years 3–4). Pae & Shin (Reference Pae and Shin2011) compared the motivational impact of Korean EFL teachers using communicative methodology – presumed to be more supportive of learners’ autonomy, competence and relatedness – with those having a more traditional teaching style. They found that the extrinsic motivation of students was not affected by which methodology they were exposed to but, as expected, those in communicative classrooms tended to have higher intrinsic motivation and self-confidence. Two other studies had the common aim of enhancing students’ intrinsic motivation, but designed quite different teaching interventions suited to their contrasting higher education (HE) contexts. In the USA, Jones, Llacer-Arrastia & Newbill (Reference Jones, Llacer-Arrastia and Newbill2009) created a series of language learning tasks that enabled their foreign language (FL) students to feel renewed enjoyment for their work; in Japan, Fukuda, Sakata & Takeuchi (Reference Fukuda, Sakata and Takeuchi2011) introduced a ‘guided-autonomy’ syllabus deliberately to boost their students’ sense of autonomy for learning, which they believed was lacking, though they found that this worked only when student–teacher relatedness was also strong.

More recent studies by Noels and colleagues have countered the criticism that SDT has more relevance to individualist ‘western’ societies than to collectivist ‘eastern’ societies. Noels et al. (Reference Noels, Chaffee, Michalyk, Sugita McEown, Csizér and Magid2014), for example, compared the beliefs of Euro-Canadian and Asian-Canadian undergraduates and found no difference in their valuing of autonomy in the language classroom, though interestingly both groups preferred ‘reactive’ to ‘proactive’ autonomy – in other words, both appreciated the active guidance of their teachers throughout their course. Sugita McEown, Noels & Saumure (Reference Sugita McEown, Noels and Saumure2014) found that Canadian students’ perceptions of their teachers’ support for relatedness and competence did correlate with their level of self-determination (i.e. autonomous motivation) for FL learning, yet perception of autonomy support did not. They suggest that in environments where high levels of autonomy already exist, such as at North American colleges, this aspect of pedagogy may not be as salient as in contexts where regular teaching and institutional curricula are more controlling. Other recent research has thrown doubt on the view that more choice is always better – Mozgalina (Reference Mozgalina2015) found that German learners of Russian did not necessarily engage more fully on language learning tasks when they had chosen them themselves.

Although not always referencing SDT, a distinct strand of L2 motivation research has addressed the principle of ‘relatedness’. Assisted by authoritative works on positive group dynamics (Dörnyei & Murphey Reference Dörnyei and Murphey2003; Dörnyei Reference Dörnyei, Cummins and Davison2007), researchers have recently focused on whether and how teachers can motivate learners through deliberately fostering positive relationships in class. For example, both Chang (Reference Chang2010) and Koga (Reference Koga2010) found correlations between the cohesiveness of language classes and the motivation of individual class members. In a continuing programme of research at Japanese universities, Murphey and colleagues have demonstrated the reciprocal nature of the relationship between learner motivation and group dynamics; for example Murphey et al. (Reference Murphey, Falout, Fukuda and Fukada2014) report an action research cycle where lecturers deliberately tried to engineer more positive group dynamics in English major classes through an adaptation of possible selves theory (see Section 3.2); students were asked to generate idealizations of helpful classmates, and these visualizations in turn helped them to behave in cooperative ways with others, evidence – they argue – of positive emotional contagion.

3.2 The L2MSS

3.3 Social cognitive theory

3.4 Further theories of motivation

A number of other theories, prominent in mainstream education, have attracted the attention of L2 researchers and been found to have explanatory power for L2 motivation. However, with one or two exceptions, they have not yet been systematically applied and empirically evaluated in L2 education. These are included in Table 3, along with references both to the original authors of the theories and to L2 educational publications which explain them.

4.1 CALL/digital technology

Developments in digital technology are probably the most prolific source of innovation in L2 teaching methodology in contemporary times, at least in western or developed world contexts, and the motivational properties of each innovation are usually considered an important aspect of its instructional qualities – after all, if learners do not like the innovation, then it will not be taken up, however great its capacity for language learning or acquisition.

Indeed, in their systematic review Macaro, Handley & Walter (Reference Macaro, Handley and Walter2012) comment that the evidence for CALL promoting positive learner attitudes towards L2 learning is stronger than the evidence for beneficial linguistic outcomes.

For reasons of space it is not possible to review all studies reporting motivational impact from the use of CALL in L2 courses – readers are referred to recent authoritative review articles (Macaro et al. Reference Macaro, Handley and Walter2012; Stockwell Reference Stockwell and Ushioda2013; Golonka et al. Reference Golonka, Bowles, Frank, Richardson and Freynik2014; Bodnar et al. 2016). Instead, what follows is a synthesis of the main motivational benefits identified in studies of CALL innovations, which should be read in cognizance of Stockwell's (Reference Stockwell and Ushioda2013) point that students’ readiness to engage with new learning technologies will always be a product of a complex range of interacting factors, such as their familiarity with IT at home, the teacher's enthusiasm for and skills in IT, and the nature of the learners’ pre-existing motivation for learning a particular language.

4.2 Content-based instruction

CLIL, in its various forms, is an increasingly common feature of national language (and especially English language) curricula worldwide, particularly popular with curriculum designers in Spain and in elite private education systems in the Far East. In addition to its efficacy in promoting language acquisition, its motivational impact has also been subject to empirical investigation in recent years. Doiz, Lasagabaster & Sierra (Reference Doiz, Lasagabaster and Sierra2014) built on an earlier study by Lasagabaster (Reference Lasagabaster2011) to compare the L2 motivation of 393 Spanish secondary school students of English divided into CLIL and non-CLIL groups in the first and third school years; they found the former to have significantly higher intrinsic motivation, instrumental orientation and interest in the L2 (though also higher anxiety levels). Mearns (Reference Mearns2012) reports motivational gains from an experiment with English secondary school learners of German in the UK. Huang (Reference Huang2011) used Spada & Fröhlich's (Reference Spada and Fröhlich1995) Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching Observation scheme to compare the behaviour patterns of the same 26 Taiwanese six-year-olds in two content-based language instruction classes and two direct language instruction classes, and found they participated more actively in the former. Seikkula-Leino (Reference Seikkula-Leino2007) found a slight motivational advantage among CLIL vs non-CLIL primary school children in Finland, while Lasagabaster & Beloqui (Reference Lasagabaster and Beloqui2015) found stronger intrinsic and integrative motives for learning English among CLIL-taught pupils in a Spanish primary school.

Although these results are encouraging, it should be noted that the studies conducted so far are all of modest scale and do not control for intervening variables (except gender). What is more, there are some less encouraging reports of practice in other global contexts. Coleman (Reference Coleman2011) argued on the basis of a survey of English ‘bilingual education’ in three Asian countries that it was being implemented at the behest of ambitious school administrators and parents, with little concern for quality control, and could have damaging effects on young people's academic motivation and achievement. Kuchah (Reference Kuchah and Ushioda2013) raises similar questions about English-medium education in Francophone West Africa. The negative motivational impact of being educated in a second or third language is well documented in some multilingual developing world settings (e.g. Mohanty et al. Reference Mohanty, Panda, Phillipson and Skuttnab-Kangas2009), and more substantial research is warranted on its effect in privileged urban educational settings too.

4.3 Intercultural content

Calls for a greater integration of culture and language teaching have increased in recent years, partly from an enhanced awareness of the interconnectedness of language and culture but also from a belief that such an approach would, by enriching syllabus content, be more motivating for learners (e.g. Kramsch Reference Kramsch2009). Two recent studies have tested this hypothesis in relation to MFL teaching in Anglophone countries. Acheson, Nelson & Luna (Reference Acheson, Nelson and Luna2015) report a two-year study with 391 students of Spanish in two American secondary schools in which an experimental group were given direct instruction and practice activities in intercultural competence during their Spanish language lessons – post-tests revealed significant gains in their attitudes to Hispanic languages and people and greater motivation for L2 learning. However, Peiser & Jones (Reference Peiser and Jones2013) suggest the issue is complex. In a mixed-method study of over 700 UK secondary school pupils, they found that their attitudes towards having more ‘intercultural understanding’ (IU) in the MFL curriculum were influenced by a range of societal, social, cognitive and institutional factors (e.g. more academic groups showed less interest in IU) and wrote ‘we cannot conclude from our study that a greater focus on IU is a panacea to motivation issues in the MFL curriculum’ (p. 354).

The cultural content of ‘authentic’ materials has long been recognized as having motivational potential (Peacock Reference Peacock1997). In the case of English as a global language, though, the question arises as to which culture is relevant, given that the language is used across a multitude of cultural and national borders, and what kind of communication is authentic, given that native speakers make up a minority of actual users (Pinner Reference Pinner2014). On the one hand, it can be argued that learners may be motivated by their (and their teachers) being convinced that local varieties of English are acceptable, even desirable, models to aspire to (Jenkins Reference Jenkins2007) and that NNS-NNS communication in international settings is just as authentic as NS-NS communication (Hall Reference Hall2013). On the other hand, there is empirical evidence that many learners still put a high value on prestige, NS varieties of English (Pan & Block Reference Pan and Block2011; Sung Reference Sung2014) and can be motivated by exposure to NS teachers (Lamb & Budiyanto Reference Lamb, Budiyanto and Ushioda2013), a perception that still drives employment practices in some education systems (see Hu & Mackay Reference Hu and McKay2012).

4.4 Designing motivating tasks

Just as tasks had become a central unit of analysis in the study of SLA, Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei and Robinson2002) argued that they could become a logical focus of study for a more situated, education-friendly approach to L2 motivation. As it turns out, there has been a rather limited amount of research conducted on task motivation in subsequent years. Broadly speaking, a distinction can be made between studies which have examined the interaction between task design features and learners’ actual engagement on the task, and those looking at the potential longer-term motivational effects of repeated use of a certain type of task. In the latter category can be included research studies which have empirically tested the assumption made by so many practising teachers in the ‘communicative’ era, viz. that learners of all ages can be motivated through the use of intrinsically stimulating and more personalized activities in class. Thus, small-scale studies by Ajibade & Ndububa (Reference Ajibade and Ndububa2008) in Nigerian secondary schools and Chou (Reference Chou2014) in Taiwanese primary schools provide some evidence for the positive motivational impact of using culturally appropriate word games, songs and stories in English classes. In an innovative research article, Kao & Oxford (Reference Kao and Oxford2014) argue for the motivational properties of hip hop music in the English language classroom based on the first author's personal experience as father and teacher. Shaaban (Reference Shaaban2006) describes how cooperative (‘jigsaw’) reading tasks improved the motivation to read of Year 5 students of English in Lebanon, while Lo & Hyland (Reference Lo and Hyland2007) report an action research study in a ‘well-established’ Hong Kong primary school which produced gains in young learners’ motivation to write English by (a) introducing more personally relevant topics and (b) providing new audiences beyond the teacher.

The more micro-level analysis of learner engagement on language learning tasks was pioneered by Julkunen (Reference Julkunen, Dörnyei and Schmidt2001), Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei and Robinson2002) and Dörnyei & Kormos (Reference Dörnyei and Kormos2000), whose work brought to light the formidably complex range of situational factors, learner characteristics and dynamic processes which shape any individual's motivation on task. Indeed, this very complexity may have deterred further empirical inquiry (though see Dörnyei & Tseng Reference Dörnyei, Tseng, Mackey and Polio2009 and Yanguas Reference Yanguas2011) until recently, when complex dynamic systems theory has offered a promising new frame of reference in which the learner's task engagement could be viewed as a complex system within an ‘attractor state’ subject to various ‘control parameters’ like task topic, learner proficiency level, relations with peers, degree of teacher support, and intended outcomes. Some of the most interesting work is on oral tasks and the learner's ‘willingness to communicate’ (e.g. MacIntyre & Serroul Reference MacIntyre, Serroul, Dörnyei, MacIntyre and Henry2015), which is beyond the remit of this review, but recent analyses of the dynamics of task (Poupore Reference Poupore2013) and lesson motivation (Waninge, Dörnyei & de Bot Reference Waninge, Dörnyei and de Bot2014) suggest this approach may eventually produce insights of value to teachers.

4.5 Increasing the relevance of the L2

A number of studies have looked at whether enhancing learners’ perception of the L2’s relevance for their lives can increase their motivation to learn it. In a rare example of a randomized control trial, Donitsa-Schmidt, Inbar & Shohamy (Reference Donitsa-Schmidt, Inbar and Shohamy2004) report how teaching the oral form of Arabic, rather than the literary form, increased the motivation of Israeli Jewish primary school learners, because it was deemed to be more useful for pragmatic and cultural reasons. Fryer et al. (Reference Fryer, Ozono, Carter, Nakao and Anderson2014) argue that utility value also plays an important motivational role among the large numbers of tertiary level students worldwide who are forced to study English on non-elective courses, and Johnson's (Reference Johnson, Apple, Da Silva and Fellner2013) longitudinal study showed that awareness of its instrumental value for work was the single most important motivator among second year Japanese university students of Engineering, suggesting that teaching should try to reinforce the relevance by, for example, focusing on vocationally relevant genres. Meanwhile in Anglophone countries, perceptions of low relevance are claimed to be a major reason for learner demotivation (Coleman Reference Coleman2009). Taylor & Marsden (Reference Taylor and Marsden2014) describe an experiment in UK secondary schools in which 13–14 year-olds were exposed to one of two different ‘advocacy’-based interventions: a panel of external speakers who had all benefited from their knowledge of an L2, or a lesson in the language with an external tutor who had a strong message to convey about their experience with that language. Results showed that participation in the intervention did have a modest beneficial effect on uptake of the L2 in later years, and this was related to more positive perception of its personal relevance.

4.6 Alternative forms of assessment

The relationship between motivation and assessment is under-researched in mainstream education as in L2 education; a popular view in the teaching profession is that traditional summative pen and paper tests can provide some short-term motivation for more confident pupils (see Huang Reference Huang2012, for evidence of this effect in Taiwanese English classes) but can also undermine long-term intrinsic motivation to study by encouraging all to value grades more than new knowledge and skills. Indeed, high-stakes testing regimes feature as a prominent demotivating factor in some research (see Section 5). Some empirical evidence is emerging on the motivational impact of more learner-centred forms of assessment. The introduction of self-assessment has been shown to boost learner motivation in Japanese university settings through a structured project (Kato Reference Kato2009) and with intermediate Iranian EFL learners through written journals (Birjandi & Tamjid Reference Birjandi and Tamjid2010). Lam (Reference Lam2014) presents testimony and a theoretical model of how portfolio assessment of L2 writing can promote student motivation and self-regulated learning. Other research is examining how formative feedback can be optimized to promote learners’ short- and long-term motivation to write in the L2. Busse (Reference Busse2013) for example found that UK university students of German had a strong preference for informational feedback expressed in an encouraging tone, though in a controlled experiment with Dutch HE students, Duijnhouwer, Prins & Stokking (Reference Duijnhouwer, Prins and Stokking2012) found no effect of such feedback on learners’ L2 writing self-efficacy.

4.7 Motivating boys

Gender has long featured as a significant individual difference in L2 motivation research, with females generally scoring higher for integrativeness and self-efficacy (e.g. Williams, Burden & Lanvers Reference Williams, Burden and Lanvers2002), for having ideal L2 selves (e.g. Henry & Cliffordson Reference Henry and Cliffordson2013) for intended learning effort (e.g. Ryan Reference Ryan, Dörnyei and Ushioda2009), for participation in foreign exchange programmes (Taylor Reference Taylor2000) and so on. In fact, there is a common perception globally that language is a ‘feminine subject’, taught by female teachers. Debate continues over whether the underlying source of these differences is biological, social or educational (Carr & Pauwels Reference Carr and Pauwels2006) but there have been several noteworthy attempts to overcome the male deficit. One approach has been to separate the sexes for language classes, in the belief that L2 use invokes teenagers’ gendered identities in ways that other subjects do not. Results of actual experiments are mixed. Chambers (Reference Chambers2005), for example, found in a UK comprehensive school pilot project that pupils’ overall enjoyment and confidence increased but teachers complained of difficulties teaching mixed-ability classes (they were normally streamed by ability) and of dealing with bad behaviour in all-male classes. By contrast, in Canada, Kissau, Quach & Wang (Reference Kissau, Quach and Wang2009) found that boys flourished in all-male classes but girls did not enjoy their all-female classes. A different approach was taken in the Score in French project in a UK secondary school (McCall Reference McCall2011), which unashamedly aimed to make the language classroom more ‘masculine’ by creating a French curriculum based on football. Through sensitive task design, exploiting the appeal not just of the game but of certain French players, the pilot project was successful in increasing the L2 motivation of both boys and girls.

6.1 What do we know?

6.2 The role of teacher educators

Indeed, this might be one of the key questions for novice teachers to answer while in training. If success in language learning is partly determined by the learner's motivation – and research suggests that it is associated with 18–33% of the variation in achievement (Masgoret & Gardner Reference Masgoret and Gardner2003) – and the teacher is an important influence on that motivation, then it is reasonable to argue that the motivational dimension should be an essential component in any course of training for language teachers. In fact, Wigfield, Cambria & Eccles (Reference Wigfield, Cambria, Eccles and Ryan2012: 474) argue that ‘with the current press for more assessments and evaluation of student performance, and teacher and principal accountability for student performance on those tests’ it becomes even more imperative that motivation research makes a contribution to teachers’ professional development.

However, the existing research also tells us that there are many cultural and contextual factors which mediate the motivational impact of teacher behaviour. What works in one educational context may not work in another. The moderate results usually obtained in L2 motivation research also reminds us of the significance of individual learner differences, since pedagogical innovations rarely gain universal approval – what works for one learner may not work for another. Therefore, language teachers-in-training need to become aware of general principles of L2 motivational practice – the four earlier points (6.1.1 – 6.1.4) are a place to start – and of sets of available strategies, as so clearly presented in Dörnyei (Reference Dörnyei2001); yet they also need to be made keenly aware that the effective operationalization of principles and strategies is contingent on local conditions and the needs, goals and desires of the actual persons involved.

This matches what we now know about the complexities of teacher learning. It is recognized that training novice teachers or persuading experienced teachers to use a pre-ordained set of instructional strategies is a recipe for failure if the strategies do not align with teachers’ underlying beliefs and values (Borg Reference Borg2003; Kubanyiova Reference Kubanyiova2012). Even the four broad ‘truths’ about motivation elucidated here may present a challenge to teachers’ existing beliefs. For example, it is possible that many language teachers have what might be termed a ‘fixed mindset’ (Dweck Reference Dweck1999), believing that learners either are or are not motivated for languages, just as they either have or do not have L2 aptitude, and that this is not open to change. Other teachers may resist the notion that warm personal relations are important for motivation, preferring instead to maintain a disciplinary distance and authority. They may well have firm views on what practices ‘work’ in the classroom and be resistant to methodological innovation. And even when convinced that learner motivation is their own responsibility, there is the danger that they will assume too dominant a role, undermining learners’ internalized motivation for the subject. In their motivational intervention study in the USA, Turner, Warzon & Christensen (Reference Turner, Warzon and Christensen2011) found that maths teachers’ ability to reflect on their own beliefs and understand the rationale behind motivational practice was crucial to their ability to change.

In addition to motivational awareness-raising, teachers might benefit from training in recognizing learner motivation and demotivation. As argued above, successful practice involves constantly responding to learners’ needs, goals and desires, over the timescale of lessons and courses. This, in turn, requires the ability to infer what learners dislike and predict what they might like. This can be developed through training in classroom observation, the use of devices like needs analysis questionnaires, lesson reaction slips and course evaluation surveys, journal writing and other techniques of reflective practice (Farrell Reference Farrell2008).

6.3 Directions for future research

This final section will consider how research on the motivational dimension of language teaching can be improved in quality, so we can have more confidence in its results, and can be made more useful to the language teaching profession so that as educators we can more readily provide the conditions for students to motivate themselves.

6.3.1 Teachers’ beliefs, motivation and practice

As discussed above, teachers’ beliefs and values profoundly influence their practice, and would mediate any attempts to make their teaching more motivating. It is true that the MotS research has brought important insights into the specific strategies that teachers value, but because it has largely been done through surveys based on researchers’ own conceptions of motivational practice, we cannot be sure that they represent teachers’ own core beliefs about how to motivate learners. We also lack evidence about how teachers’ conceptions of motivation are reflected in their practice. A recent study by Muñoz & Ramirez (Reference Muñoz and Ramirez2015), for instance, using an SDT theoretical framework, found that Colombian university language centre teachers appeared to recognize the motivational value of giving learners choice and introducing meaningful language tasks, yet rarely did either during observed classes. Kubanyiova's (Reference Kubanyiova2006) study of a training course designed to help teachers move towards a more ‘motivational teaching practice’ found that, although the participants were enthusiastic about the course and recognized the value of the proposed MotS, they did not adopt them in their teaching; she ascribed this ‘failure’ to both contextual constraints and to the nature of the participants’ own motivation to teach. Yet Feryok & Oranje (Reference Feryok and Oranje2015) show that even when teachers’ main focus is on other aspects of pedagogy, such as an intercultural class project, a desire to interest and motivate learners is a recurring motif in their lesson planning and moment-to-moment classroom decisions,

If we want to understand why and how teachers adopt and adapt MotS, researchers need to engage with the literature on teacher cognition, and conduct in-depth qualitative studies of individual teachers as ‘persons-in-context’ (Ushioda Reference Ushioda, Dörnyei and Ushioda2009). They need to recognize the complexity of teachers’ mental lives by enquiring into teachers’ prior educational experiences, as learners, as teacher trainees, and as novice teachers, to see how their thinking has evolved over time, how they orient to the profession, and how they perceive the affordances and constraints of their particular context (Kubanyiova & Feryok Reference Kubanyiova and Feryok2015). They need to observe classroom events closely (for example using stimulated recall techniques) to understand teachers’ ‘thinking-in-action’ and the way they interactively create engaging experiences in class, or alternatively fail to do so. Such methods would also help to overcome another flaw noted in the MotS approach, namely uncertainty over the meaning of particular strategies.