An investigation into the frequency of motivational strategy use among EFL Algerian teachers and their Teacher-trainees’ motivational strategy perceptions, writing motivation, and achievement.

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate foreign language motivational teaching strategies in the Algerian context of English as a foreign language teacher education. On the basis of some crucial problems, which are, basically, the teacher-trainees’ unsatisfactory levels of writing achievement, on the one hand, and the scarcity of research on the effectiveness of foreign language motivational strategies as related to students’ perceptions, on the other, the current research endeavours to cover the following aims: 1) to contribute to the body of research on foreign language motivational strategies, 2) to offer a plausible explanation for English as a foreign teacher-trainees’ unsatisfactory levels of writing motivation and writing achievement, 3) to provide relevant guidance to help English as a foreign language teachers promote effective motivational practices, and 4) hopefully, to sensitise teachers to the practice of motivationally relevant teaching that incorporates teachertrainees’ perceptions. The sample drawn randomly from the target population is constituted of 6 writing teachers and 120 teacher-trainees enrolled at the ‘École Normale Supérieure de Bouzareah’, Algiers. The results obtained through a mixedmethods design show that teachers tend to overuse or underuse some motivational strategies. Moreover, the findings are, overall, in the direction of the main hypothesis, which states that: ‘The use of motivational strategies as implemented by English as a foreign language teachers would not match the relative importance attached to them by their teacher-trainees because these strategies do not appear to be implemented in line with the teacher-trainees’ perceptions’. They also lead us to reject the null hypotheses associated with it and conclude that the level of match between the use of motivational strategies and their perceived importance affects the teacher-trainees’ writing motivation and achievement. Furthermore, the qualitative results help cast some light on the teachers’ motivational practices and their teacher-trainees’ perceptions of motivational strategies. A major implication of the study is that teachers should calibrate their motivational practices to their teacher-trainees’ perceptions.