English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Motivation: An Activity Theory Perspective

Authors

Teymour Rahmati, Urmia UniversityFollow
Karim Sadeghi, Bahçeşehir UniversityFollow

Abstract

Drawing upon Activity Theory, this mixed-methods study explored L2 teachers’ (de)motivation factors, motivation change, and voice in adopting strategies that could motivate L2 teachers. Semi-structured interviews, a motivational timeline diagram, and a researcher-developed scale were used to collect data from 226 in-service L2 teachers. The interview data collected from 15 participants were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding using MAXQDA Analytics Pro version 12.3. Individual participants’ motivational timelines were also carried over into a collective diagram to illustrate motivational trajectories. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data collected from 211 teachers. The findings identified a number of (de)motivation factors and indicated that L2 teachers experienced changes in their motivation due to some primary and secondary level contradictions in their motivational activity systems. Moreover, L2 teachers’ commitment to their profession revealed the significant role of teachers’ beliefs and agency in resolving those contradictions. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were accordingly discussed.

Keywords

language teacher motivation, motivation factor, demotivation factor, motivation change, activity theory, motivating strategy, exploratory sequential design, qualitative research

Author Bio(s)

Teymour Rahmati has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Urmia University and is interested in researcher on teacher education. His recent research has appeared in Assessing Writing and RELC Journal. Please direct correspondence to t_rahmatitaleshi@yahoo.com.

Karim Sadeghi has a Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia (U.K.) and is a professor of TESOL at Urmia University (Iran) and an adjunct professor at Bahçeşehir University, Turkey. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research (indexed in Web of Science and Scopus) and serves on the editorial board of several national and international journals including RELC Journal (SAGE), Research in Post Compulsory Education (Routledge), TESOL Journal (Wiley), and Language Testing in Asia (Springer). He was selected as Iran's top researcher in Humanities and Social Sciences in 2013 and in English Language/Applied Linguistics in 2018. His recent publications have appeared in RELC Journal, System, Assessing Writing, English Teaching and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Please direct correspondence to kerimsadeghi@gmail.com.

Publication Date

3-25-2021

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4472

Recommended APA Citation

Rahmati, T., & Sadeghi, K. (2021). English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Motivation: An Activity Theory Perspective. The Qualitative Report, 26(4), 1084-1105. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4472