The qualities of teachers affecting student motivation and teachers? awareness of these qualities

One of the challenges facing the instructors of English is obviously the problem of motivation. Motivation can be seen as a broad umbrella term that covers a variety of meanings. The term motivation is as useful for practitioners as for researchers because it highlights one basic aspect of human mind. This aspect is related to what one wants or desires, in contrast to characteristics related to what one rationally thinks. In dealing with the problem, what teachers know and do on this subject is likely to play a crucial role. It is only natural that informing the students of the characteristics of intrinsic motivation should come the first. In this study, teachers? knowledge of the motivational strategies from which they can benefit and how effectively they use these strategies are examined. In this qualitative study, classroom observations and oral interviews were conducted. Classroom observations were preferred on account of the fact that they enable the researcher to obtain true information about what really happens in the classroom through natural means. Having reviewed the literature, the strategies regarding student motivation were identified, and the participants? knowledge of these strategies and whether or not they were incorporated into the classroom were examined. This study has been conducted in the School of Foreign Languages, University of Marmara with the voluntarily participation of ten language teachers. The study, considering the diversity of motivational strategies, revealed the fact that what we need is quality rather than quantity.