Motivational strategies used by EFL teachers working in Turkish State primary school setting: A study in Afyonkarahisar schools

Motivation plays a vital role in terms of both a language learner and teacher. It is a key concept in foreign language teaching especially for young language learners. As long as a pupil who has just started to learn English is motivated, he or she can develop interest for the target language. In Turkish state school setting the students begin to learn English as a foreign language at the age of nine at 4th grade and their English learning continues at 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades. If these students are kept motivated, their tendency to learn the target language increases in every grade of their school life.In order to investigate the usage of motivational strategies by English language teachers, this study aimed at finding out the usage of motivational strategies by 87 Turkish EFL Teachers working in Afyonkarahisar in Turkish State Primary Schools. These teachers were given a motivational strategies questionnaire prepared by Zolton Dörnyei (2001b). After the implementation of the questionnaire, 12 teachers chosen from this group were first applied a semi-structured interview and then (the same group) were observed through a video camera by the researcher herself in their classrooms.To analyze the quantitative data (questionnaire results) in this study, The Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS 18) was used. In order to analyse the interview data, The Qualitative Data Analysis Programme for Social Sciences (NVivo 9) was preferred. In addition, the qualitative data which was obtained from the observation were analyzed through categorization according to items in the questionnaire. While the analyzed data of the questionnaire revealed that no significant differences existed among the teachers in using motivational strategies and they generally tended to make use of these strategies, the data from both the interview and observation showed that these teachers were even unaware of some of the motivational strategies and they couldn?t use them because of the physical conditions of the schools and their students? socioeconomic status.