CHAPTER 43 CREATING A MOTIVATING CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

This chapter addresses the complex question of what makes a classroom environment motivating. It will be argued that in order to understand the psychological tapestry of classroom life, we need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach and draw on research findings from a number of different areas within the social sciences, such as group dynamics, motivational psychology, educational studies, and second language research. The assumption underlying this chapter is that the motivating character of the learning context can be enhanced through conscious intervention by the language teacher, and accordingly the main facets of the environment will be discussed with such a proactive and practical objective in mind. Key concepts to be addressed include group cohesiveness and interpersonal relations, group norms and student roles, the teacher’s leadership styles, and the process of facilitation, as well as the main phases of a proactive, motivational teaching practice within a process-oriented framework. Researchers analyzing the effectiveness of second language (L2) education usually focus on issues such as the quality and quantity of L2 input, the nature of the language learning tasks, and the teaching methodology applied, as well as various learner traits and strategies. These are undoubtedly central factors in L2 learning