Research method

In order to find answers to the research questions of Study 6 and to provide the necessary depth and richness of information, qualitative data seemed to be the best source for the same reasons elaborated on in Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5.

7.3.1.1 The participants

I set out to build a purposive sample of 30 teachers using the principle of maximum variation, so I sought out language teachers of the organisations that participated in the previous studies of my research: all of the 30 participants were teachers of English at companies employing more than 250 employees representing a wide range of industries including the automotive; baby, feminine, and family care; banking; construction;

electricity; FMCG (fast moving consumer goods); gas; information technology; insurance;

nuclear; pharmaceutical; telecommunications; tobacco; and trading industries; as well as public administration. After conducting the 15^th interview that I was nearing data saturation, therefore I decided to do three more interviews and finally include only 18 participants in the study. 12 of the participating teachers were female, the other 6 were male, 16 of them Hungarian, one of them a native Canadian and one of them a native British teacher. The participants were aged between 29 and 61, each with at least seven years’ experience in teaching adults (see Table 20). To retain their anonymity, and for the sake of simplicity because of the high number of participants, they will be referred to as T1 to T18 throughout the study representing the order in which they were interviewed.

114 Table 20 Participants

Pseu. Age Sex Exper.

(years) Workplace EFL / ESP Employm

ent Qualifications Natio nality

T1 44 F 21

companies,

language schools EFL and ESP

self-employed English MA H

T2 29 M 9 companies,

language schools EFL and ESP self-employed

English MA,

PhD in progress H

T3 45 M 12 companies,

language schools

ESP (marketing, finance, oil

refining)

self-employed

university degree in finance / English MA, language coach

H

T4 39 M 17 companies,

language school EFL and ESP

self-employed English MA H

T5 44 M 19 companies,

language school EFL and ESP

self-employed English MA H

T6 28 F 7 companies,

language school EFL and ESP self-employed

English MA,

PhD in progress H

T7 39 F 15 companies,

language school EFL and ESP self-employed

English MA, foreign trade translator and

interpreter

H

T8 45 F 15

companies, secondary school,

university

EFL and ESP self-employed

Social Sciences MA, TESOL, TESOL trainer,

TOEFL trainer

CA

T9 61 F 39 companies,

language school

EFL and ESP (finance, health

care)

self-employed

English BA, MA and Human

Resources MA H

T10 45 F 23 companies EFL and ESP

(banking)

self-employed English BA UK

T11 47 M 29 companies

EFL and ESP (general business, presentation,

negotiation)

self-employed English MA H

T12 41 F 15 companies,

language school

EFL and ESP (general business)

self-employed English MA H

T13 34 F 12 one company ESP (telco)

self-employed English MA H

T14 58 F 35 companies,

language school

EFL and ESP

(social sciences) employee English MA H

T15 41 F 14 one company ESP (insurance)

self-employed English MA H

T16 56 F 31 companies

language school

EFL and ESP

(banking) employee English MA H

T17 45 M 19

companies, language school,

primary school

EFL and ESP (business, agriculture, finance, foreign

trade)

employed + self-employed

English MA H

T18 43 F 23 companies,

language school EFL and ESP

employed + self-employed

English MA H

115 7.3.1.2 The instrument

Based on the same considerations as in the previous qualitative studies of my dissertation, I concluded that I would devise a semi-structured interview guide through 7 steps. The seven steps of the validation process were based on Prescott’s (2011) model. As a result of points 1 to 3 in the model, the following research questions were formulated:

RQ1: What influences the level of motivation of English teachers working in a corporate environment?

RQ2: How do English teachers working in a corporate environment rate their own ability to motivate students?

RQ3: In what ways do teachers of adult learners of English in a corporate environment motivate students?

As a next step, a semi-structured interview guide was devised in Hungarian consisting of four broader topics corresponding to the research questions: (1) general information, (2) how motivated teachers feel in their job, (3) how teachers rate their own motivating abilities, (4) how teachers motivate their learners. The first draft of the interview guide was then expert reviewed and piloted to arrive at the final version of the instrument (see Appendix F). Due to the thorough preparation, no further adjustments were needed after the pilots. The 35- to 40-minute interviews were conducted in Hungarian and with the native English and Canadian teachers in English, recorded and transcribed in December 2014 and January 2015.

The verbatim transcripts yielded a very rich data base of approximately 70,000 words / 128 pages.

7.3.1.3 Data analysis

For an analysis of the data, similarly to previous qualitative studies of my dissertation, Crabtree and Miller’s (1999) Template Organising Style (TOS) was used. As a first step of the data analysis process, the following code manual was made (see Table 21.) based on the 4 key areas of the research instrument.

116 Table 21 The original code manual

General information

What influences your level of

motivation?

How do you rate your own motivating

abilities?

How do you motivate your students?

 They teach both EFL and ESP;

 they run their own business;

 they teach adults because of money; and freedom.

 Their level of motivation is fluctuating (Dörnyei & Ottó, 1998) as we are fallible humans;

 in order to remain motivated, teachers use new books, teach new students, teach ESP;

 students perceive their teacher’s motivation from

meta-communication (Csikszentmihályi, 1997);

 teacher and learner motivation

mutually affect one another, but the teacher’s is stronger

(Csikszentmihályi, 1997).

 Their motivating abilities are a bit better than average;

 the long-term motivating effect of a teacher is more determining;

 motivating abilities can be developed through raising awareness and training.

 They motivate by preparation;

 getting to know them;

 praise (Williams &

Burden, 1997);

 encouragement;

 setting goals;

 interaction (Williams

& Burden, 1997);

 personality (Williams

& Burden, 1997);

 behaviour (Williams &

Burden, 1997);

 emphasising instrumentality (Gardner & Lambert, 1972);

 emphasising the integrative nature of English (Gardner &

Lambert, 1972; Akbari, 2008);

 eliciting ideal-self (Dörnyei, 2009);

 eliciting vision (Dörnyei &

Kubanyiova, 2014).

Having established the original code manual, the coding process was started with the initial coding, which meant highlighting relevant sentences and adding a label to them. As a second step, within second level coding, all the codes related to one of the 4 broad areas of the instrument (e.g., How do you motivate your students?) were formulated and collected on an individual basis. As a third step, within the framework of third level coding, more abstract commonalities related to one of the four broad areas based on all of the interviewees’

accounts (all the interviewees’ relevant data on ‘How do you motivate your students?’) were established. Finally, all of the emerging data were collated with the ones of the original code manual and this comparison resulted in the following emerging themes (see Table 22), which complement the themes of the original code manual:

117 Table 22 Emerging themes

General information

How motivated do you feel?

How do you rate your own motivating

abilities?

How do you motivate your students?

 They teach adults because public

education is frightening (burnout, constraints);

 it requires creativity;

 it poses an intellectual challenge;

 there are no discipline problems;

 it offers flexibility;

 adults have clear goals.

 They motivate themselves by participating in continuous training;

 with variety;

 with novelties;

 by attaining mastery;

 by

experiencing the Pygmalion effect;

 with right amount of workload.

 They rate their own abilities based on continuous feedback;

 these abilities can be developed;

 by raising awareness;

 with reflection;

 by mastering people skills;

 by raising self-awareness;

 their motivating abilities are dual (short + long-term);

 their motivating abilities might stem from their own language learning experience (either positive or negative).

 They motivate with a practical

approach;

 by setting goals;

 by making learners feel successful;

 by teaching ESP;

 by getting to know the learners;

 with free conversation so they can vent their frustrations;

 by creating trust;

 by asking good questions;

 by tailoring timing;

 by personalising handouts;

 with their appearance;

 with their personality and behaviour: being friendly,

empathetic, attentive, informal, enthusiastic, flexible, thorough, consistent, credible, punctual, tailor-made and well-prepared.

In document Corporate language education in Hungary: the teacher (Pldal 125-129)