Improving pupil motivation for second language acquisition at Key Stage 4 via teacher response to the pupil voice

This study aims to investigate teacher strategies for improving pupil motivation, and the strategies which pupils themselves employ to self-motivate, in particular investigating the motivation of two year 11 classes at a high-achieving, selective, rural full-boarding school. A thorough review of the literature was carried out and used as the basis for the investigative measures of the project. Namely, Dörnyei and Csizér’s 1998 research on the ‘Ten commandments for motivating language learners,’ Gardner’s 1985 Attitude/Motivational Test Battery, and Pintrich’s 1991 Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. These instruments were adapted for use on a much smaller scale and combined to give a detailed understanding of the strategies which teachers value for motivating pupils, pupils’ views on these same strategies, and pupil motivational levels and learning strategy use. A new ‘Ten commandments’ was compiled then tailored to the motivational needs of my school and pupils based on teacher responses and pupil ratings. Due to the global pandemic, investigations on the impact of implementing these strategies on pupil motivation was not possible, but the pupil ratings were supported by the findings in the AMTB/MSLQ part of the pupil questionnaire which found that pupils are largely instrumentally oriented, extrinsically motivated, and demonstrate low levels of trait anxiety. Pupils also self-rate effort as high, demonstrate high levels of self-efficacy beliefs, and largely display growth mindset traits. However, there is scope to improve their use of learning strategies, particularly their use of peer learning strategies and metacognitive self-regulation, suggesting that an explicit teaching intervention of these strategies would be beneficial