Motivational behaviors of teachers in Turkish EFL classes: Perception of students

Motivation is regarded as one of the most important factors in language learning process and teachers try a lot to motivate their students in language classes. There have been a number of studies in the field of education to prove that teachers play important roles on student motivation (Christophel, 1990; Williams & Burden, 1997; Dörnyei, 2001a; Trang & Baldauf, 2007). In this respect, this study aimed to identify the most and least motivating teacher behaviors and their effects in language classes according to students. Participants of the study included 314 pre-intermediate students of the English preparatory program of a state university. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire administered to these participants, and 19 students were also interviewed to get in-depth data on teacher motivational behaviors. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, and content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The results presented some significant insight on the most and least teacher motivation behaviors that would serve teachers as a guide for classroom implications.