FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ MOTIVATION AT SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH-EASTERN HUNGARY – THE PARTIAL
RESULTS OF A PILOT STUDY Bajzát Tünde
PhD, associate professor
University of Miskolc, Language Teaching Centre
INTRODUCTION
“A motivated teacher is crucial to a successful classroom. They will look at teaching through a different lens, and, in doing so, motivate their students in their learning, too.
Motivation helps to energise, direct and sustain positive behaviour over a long period of time. It involves working towards goals and tailoring activities to achieving this purpose.
It also helps to drive creativity and curiosity, sparking the desire needed for students to want to learn more” [1].
Therefore, the aim of this paper is to describe some of the aspects of foreign language teachers’ motivation for further development. The first part of the paper presents the theoretical background of the research. The second part describes the aims, method, setting and subjects of the research. The results of the research are shown in the third part of the paper.
THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH
Teachers play a key role in motivating students. They have an impact on students’
motivation in several ways: through daily interactions with students, they influence students’ beliefs about their own abilities, their attitudes toward certain subject areas, their immediate and long-term goals, their beliefs about the causes of their successes and failures, and their reasons for doing their academic work [2]. Consequently, teachers themselves should be motivated, as well.
A motivated teacher shows commitment towards the students’ learning, and there is a good chance that the students will do the same thing. Another important factor is enthusiasm, because students take cues from their teachers about how to respond to school activities. Enthusiastic teachers convey commitment to and excitement about the subject matter, not only in words, but also by body language [3].
Besides commitment and enthusiasm, research studies have proved that there are four components of teacher motivation. The first one is intrinsic motivation, which has always been associated with the internal desire to educate people, to pass on knowledge and values, and to advance a community or a nation. Several studies have shown that the most common reason for entering the profession is the desire to become a teacher.
Teachers’ intrinsic satisfaction is derived from two sources: the educational process (i.e.
working with students and experiencing the changes in students’ performances) and the subject matter (i.e. dealing with a valued field and continuously integrating new information in it, thereby increasing one’s level of professional skills and knowledge).
Furthermore, intrinsically motivated behaviour is assumed to be connected to three basic human needs: autonomy (i.e. experiencing oneself as the origin of one’ behaviour),
MultiScience - XXXII. microCAD International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference University of Miskolc, 5-6 September, 2018. ISBN 978-963-358-162-9
DOI: 10.26649/musci.2018.057
relatedness (i.e. feeling close to and connected to other individuals) and competence (i.e.
feeling efficacious and having a sense of accomplishment). Ideally teaching satisfies the first two of these human needs, because a teacher is autonomous in dealing with the class and the school community (both staff and students) provides a rich and intensive human environment. The third need can only be satisfied if teachers feel that they are doing a good job and believe in their own effectiveness as pedagogues [4].
The second component of teacher motivation refers to social contextual influences.
These external influences can negatively affect intrinsic motivation and can be divided into influences on a micro- and macro contextual level. Influences on the micro contextual level refer to the immediate teaching environment, i.e. the classroom, the students, the colleagues and the administration. The macro contextual level includes influences from every layer of society including politicians, parents and the media, since the aim of teaching is to bring up and educate the next generation of people [5].
The third aspects of teacher motivation is the temporal dimension, which refers to the teacher’s career advancement possibilities. Teacher motivation is not only about the motivation to teach but also to be a teacher as a lifelong career. The consecutive steps on a career path capitalise both on the intrinsic pleasure of being involved on one’s profession and on various extrinsic rewards that a career advancement brings about.
However, if there are no possibilities for professional advancement, this will have a negative impact on the teacher’s work morale and motivation [6].
The last aspect of teacher motivation is concerned with the negative influences.
Research studies have shown that at each level of education there are teachers who are frustrated, disaffected, bored, or not motivated to teach. There are several demotivating factors, such as stress; the lack of teacher autonomy due to set curricula, standardised tests, imposed teaching methods, government mandated policies and other institutional constraints; insufficient self-efficacy due to inappropriate training; content repetitiveness and limited opportunities for intellectual development; and inadequate career structures [7].
THE AIM, METHOD, SETTING AND SUBJECTS OF THE RESEARCH
This part of the paper describes in detail the aims, method, setting and subjects of the empirical study.
The aims of the research
The aim of the empirical study was to find out some of the factors of English and German language teachers’ motivation.
The method of the research
The analysed data are partial results of an empirical study. To obtain the research data, non-probability sampling was chosen. It is used when probability sampling is difficult to achieve. Its disadvantage is that it does not involve random selection. Non-probability sampling may not represent the population well, therefore the sample cannot be considered to be representative of the examined population [8].
Nevertheless, in the present research non-probability sampling was used because it is impossible to involve all the foreign language teachers at the examined schools in the study. However, this method seemed to be the most suitable one.
The method of data collection was by questionnaire. The questionnaire in Hungarian contained closed questions and Likert scales. Closed questions were used because they direct the respondents’ thoughts, but at the same time they allow the researcher to compare the participants’ answers and it is easy to process them. It is easier and quicker to answer closed questions. The disadvantages are the loss of spontaneity and expressiveness [9]. The closed questions were concerned with the schools’ available infrastructures.
Likert scales were developed to measure people’s attitudes. The questions should be presented to permit a judgement of values, and not a judgement of facts [10]. Likert scales were used to measure the teachers’ attitudes of motivation for development. Ten sentences were listed and the participants had to indicate the importance of each sentence, three alternatives were given: very important, moderately important, and unimportant.
As a survey method the self-completion questionnaire was used, where the participants filled in the paper-based questionnaire. The respondents completed the questionnaire voluntarily and their anonymity was assured.
The setting and subjects of the research
The study was conducted in the spring of 2018 at 16 secondary schools in north-eastern Hungary, where 35 foreign language teachers filled in the questionnaire in Hungarian.
The majority of the respondents (32 teachers, 91%) were female; and only few male participants (3 teachers, 9%) took part in the study. More than half of the teachers (20 respondents, 57%) teach English as a foreign language; and less than half of them (15 participants, 43%) are German language teachers.
The participating teachers work at different schools. Almost half of the institutions (7 schools, 44%) are situated in Miskolc, in the county’s capital. The other schools are located in seven different smaller cities within the county of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén in Edelény, Kazincbarcika, Putnok, Szerencs, Szikszó, Tiszaújváros, and Ózd. The institutions differ not only in their locations, but also in their specializations and organizational structures. The secondary technical schools have seven different types of specializations, such as agriculture, commerce and tourism, health care, information science, electrical engineering, mining engineering, and fine arts. More than a third of the institutions (6 schools, 37.5%) are only secondary technical schools. A third of the institutions (5 schools, 31%) operate both as primary and secondary schools. There are three schools (19%) that function only as secondary grammar schools, and there are only two (12.5%) such institutions that are both secondary grammar and secondary technical schools. More than a third of the schools (6 institutions, 37.5%) also function as dormitories. Furthermore, most of the institutions (12 schools, 75%) are state-funded and state-operated schools, however three of them (19%) are funded and run by the Catholic Church and one (6%) is by the Reformed Church.
THE RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH
The following section presents the results of the research. The first part describes the infrastructure of the examined schools. The second part presents ten areas of the teachers’ motivation for developing their own knowledge and skills.
School infrastructure
The infrastructures of the participating schools were examined to find out the available facilities in the foreign language classrooms. For most of the participants (97%) the use of an ordinary blackboard and a projector in the language classroom is available. The majority of the classrooms (91%) have Internet access, a laptop (89%), and an interactive blackboard (89%). However, only a third of the students (29%) can access the Internet in the language classroom using their own mobile phones, and only a fifth of the classrooms (20%) has a desktop computer.
The results show that the infrastructures of the examined schools in most cases are satisfactory, however students’ access to the Internet in the language classroom and having a desktop computer available could be improved. Therefore we can see that the learning environment supports teacher motivation, because the social contextual influences on a micro level are adequate.
Teachers’ perceptions of motivation
The participating teachers were asked to indicate the importance of ten sentences concerning their motivation for further development. The results are shown in Table 1.
We can see that finding out more about experiential education was viewed as the most important goal, since the majority of the respondents (97%) considered it to be very important, few of them (3%) moderately important, and none of them thought it to be unimportant. Similarly, learning about new materials and activities, and becoming more creative were seen to be of crucial importance, as most of the participants (91%) judged it to be very important, few of them (9%) moderately important, and none of them thought to be unimportant. The table illustrates that developing the teachers’ own digital competences is considered to be less important, when compared to the previous aims, since two-thirds of the respondents (74%) saw it as very important, some of them (20%) as moderately important and there were few of them (6%), who thought it to be unimportant. Gathering more experience by watching students’ performance in class is seen very important by a little more than half of the teachers (57%), less than half of them (40%) thought it to be moderately important and few of them (3%) as unimportant.
Likewise, developing their own self-reflective skills in teaching were supposed to be very important by half of the respondents (54%), moderately important by less than half of them (43%), and few of them (3%) thought it to be not important. We can see that almost half of the participants (46%) considered fighting professional burnout and exhaustion to be of crucial importance, a third of them (34%) viewed it as moderately important and some of them (20%) as not important. The table also shows that teachers viewed brushing up their foreign language skills even less important, because only a third of them (35%) saw it as very important, half of them (51%) as moderately
important, and some of them (14%) as not important. Furthermore, sharing their experiences with other fellow teachers were considered of crucial importance by only a third of the participants (34%), more than half of them (66%) saw it as moderately important, and none of them as unimportant. The data also shows that tracking the professional development of a student is the least important aim of the participating teachers, since only a quarter of them (28%) considered it to be very important, more than half of them (66%) saw it as moderately important, and few of them (6%) as not important.
Table 1
Teachers’ motivation (n=35) I would like to … very
important
moderately important
unimportant find out more about the methods of
experiential education.
97% 3% 0%
learn about new materials and activities.
91% 9% 0%
become more creative. 91% 9% 0%
develop my digital competences. 74% 20% 6%
gather more experience by watching students’ performance in class.
57% 40% 3%
develop my self-reflective skills in teaching.
54% 43% 3%
fight professional burnout and exhaustion.
46% 34% 20%
brush up my foreign language skills. 35% 51% 14%
share my experiences with other fellow teachers.
34% 66% 0%
track the professional development of a student.
28% 66% 6%
The outcomes of the research have proved that the participating teachers’ intrinsic motivation is high to gain knowledge about new methods, materials and activities; to become more creative and to further develop their digital competences. However the negative influences of teacher motivation, namely professional burnout and exhaustion were not considered of great importance, therefore teachers’ attention should be raised to these demotivating factors and also how to cope with them. Furthermore, the intrinsic motivation of the respondents to refresh their own language skills was viewed to be moderately important, consequently the importance and benefits of being well-prepared and up-to-date in the language classroom should be pointed out to the teachers.
Moreover, the second component of teacher motivation, the micro-level social contextual influence, i.e. sharing experiences with colleagues, was mainly viewed to be of moderate importance. Additionally, although several studies have proved that the most common reason for becoming a teacher was derived from the experience to follow the changes in the performance and development of students, however the participants
in the present study considered this intrinsic satisfaction less important. In order to find out the reasons for demotivation in certain areas further research should be carried out.
CONCLUSION
This paper first presented the theoretical background of the study. The second part described the aim, method, setting and subjects of the empirical research carried out in spring 2018 at 16 secondary school in northern Hungary, where 35 foreign language teachers filled in the questionnaire in Hungarian. The third part discussed the results of the study. The outcomes showed that the participants work in a supportive infrastructural teaching environment, where the available facilities were satisfactory and thus further increase teachers’ motivation. The participants’ intrinsic motivation was proved to be high in most of the aspects, the majority of the respondents were motivated to develop their knowledge of new pedagogical tools and digital literacy. However, the outcomes of the research imply that several components of teacher motivation were not considered to be of crucial importance. Therefore, the participating teachers’ attention should be raised to the relevance and benefits of other factors. Moreover, further investigation should be carried out to learn about the reasons of the demotivating aspects.
LIST OF REFERENCES
[1] Impact Teachers. https://www.impactteachers.com/motivated-teacher-key- classroom/teacher-tips
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[8] MAJOROS, P.: A kutatásmódszertan alapjai. Budapest, Perfekt Gazdasági Tanácsadó, Oktató és Kiadó Részvénytársaság, 2004. pp. 102-104.
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[10] LIKERT, R.: A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes. New York, Archives of Psychology, 1932. pp. 11-12.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was carried out as part of the „Nyelvkaland ME” EFOP-3.2.14-17-2017- 00005 project.
