An investigation into the motivation of English language teachers in Turkey with a focus on the effect of motivational aspects on their teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the primary sources of motivation and demotivation of the secondary school EFL teachers in Turkey and find out to what extent their teaching process is influenced by these motivating and demotivating factors. This is a mixed-methods study conducted with 149 EFL teachers working at the secondary schools in different cities of Turkey. It adopts the explanatory research design in which a questionnaire survey was followed by interviews for data collection. The questionnaire was administered to all 149 participants while the interviews were conducted with 10 participants. SPSS v.16.0 for quantitative data analysis and content analysis for qualitative data analysis were used. The findings reveal that student-related issues are remarkably considered motivating by this group of teachers. Some issues related to the parents and the administration, some school-related issues, salary, in-service training, working hours, job security, work autonomy, status of teachers in society, holidays, advancement opportunities and the relationship among the colleagues are also considered motivating by most EFL teachers in Turkey. On the contrary, the syllabus, some course books related issues, the changes related to national guidelines and supervisory process are considered demotivating by most EFL teachers. The teaching process of EFL teachers are influenced by these motivational and demotivational aspects of teaching. However, the extent of this influence shows difference among teachers. While some are seriously influenced by both motivating and demotivating factors, some others do not think that their teaching process is influenced by unfavorable facet of demotivating factors. Key words: EFL teachers, work motivation, motivating factors, demotivating factors,effect of motivational aspects