Abstract:

Most foreign language (FL) teachers identify the ability to motivate students as their main challenge. Second language (L2) scholars claim that motivation is a key factor in language learning. Second language motivation research offers numerous theoretical constructs that conceptualize and correlate motivation and achievement. Recent studies have applied the theoretical framework of self-determination theory (SDT) to address the relationship between FL teachers' communicative teaching approach and their students' degree of motivation, engagement, and subsequent learning revealing valuable and promising findings. Moreover, L2 scholars have raised the issue of the limitations of the traditional quantitative research paradigm and the need to conduct classroom research in the classroom rather than about the classroom (van Lier, 1988).

The present interpretive and descriptive qualitative study seeks: (1) to understand and describe students' motivation during FL instruction namely, students' engagement as it underlies motivation as defined by Connell and Wellborn (1991), from both the students' and the researcher's perspectives, (2) to examine how students themselves describe their learning experience in the FL classroom, and (3) to examine learning outcomes, expressed in quantitative measures by teachers and in qualitative accounts by students gathered through individual interviews and focus groups.

Findings identify the teacher as the key element affecting students' levels of interest, enthusiasm, engagement, and motivation. Participants reveal specifics about the second language instructional setting which are seldom available to teachers such as: salient characteristics of what engages and motivates students and perceptions of what the teacher does and says and what actually shapes students' behaviors. The interpretation of the findings through the lens of Connell and Wellborn's (1991) motivational model provides detailed and constructive pedagogical practices of utmost importance for FL teachers. Additionally, this interpretation results in establishing links between participants' learning and their motivation within the research context.