1. The Teacher’s Role in Building Students’ Motivation in the
Second Language Classroom
Andrus Piazza
Introduction
While much research has been conducted on the source of motivation for learners
of a second language, only limited studies have been done in order to show the
importance of the language teacher and the classroom environment on the levels of
motivation a student has while confronting second language acquisition. The studies
mentioned here, however, are some of the select few that mention the role of the teacher
and how their strategies and presence can determine how a student confronts the
language that they are learning.
There are two main categories in which the teacher participates in the language-
learning classroom that these following studies discuss that I wish to name. The first
would be the idea that there are certain strategies that teachers can employ to encourage
high levels of student motivation, as outlined by Dörnyei, et. al. (1998). These are all
factors in the classroom that a teacher can control. In this study, the teacher participants
were asked to rate strategies in terms of importance as well as in terms of frequency of
use. The list of strategies was diluted down to “ten commandments for motivation
language learners”, all of which were deemed by teachers as critical components of a
successful second language classroom.
The second category would be that of students’ perceptions of teachers, as
discussed by Noels, et. al. (1999). The way in which a student views their instructor,
especially in terms of their communicative style, was studied as having a correlation with
students’ intrinsic motivation (e.g. if the student found the teacher to be controlling and

2. not very informative, the students showed lower levels of motivation). While the
instructors cannot directly control their students’ perceptions of them, it is important to
recognize that teachers’ careful attention to certain strategies could indirectly control
students’ perceptions, thus build motivation in their students. Using one of the “ten
commandments” outlined by Dörnyei, et. al. (1998), such as creating a relaxed and
pleasant atmosphere, could lead to positive perceptions of the teachers by the learners.
This would, in turn, aid in the overall building of motivation in the students to learn the
language.
General Questions
What is markedly uncertain is the fact that, while a seemingly convincing list of
strategies for building motivation has been created and agreed upon in many different
academic circles, there is a lack of evidence actually demonstrating the effects of such
strategies on students’ motivation levels. The role of the teacher, although unquestionably
vital in assessing learners’ motivation, is practically unknown, empirically speaking.
Discussion
It is imperative that the findings from the aforementioned studies be used as
catalysts for further research into how the implementation of certain strategies can
influence student motivation. Conducting systematic research in which these strategies
become hypotheses would prove highly valuable in the progression of second language
acquisition as it pertains to the second language classroom. This kind of testing would
also give teachers confidence that these strategies stand on empirical grounds, rather than
simply theoretical. Using essential theoretical implications already exposed by Noels, et.
al. (1999) and Dörnyei, et. al. (1998) on how teachers play a pivotal role on students’

3. motivation, further research can and should be done in order to provide concrete evidence
suggesting that certain strategies do in fact lead to measurable outcomes in matters of
motivation, academic performance and perception of the teachers by the students.
ResearchQuestion
When considering the potential of building motivation in a second language
classroom, it is most logical to consider what the instructor can do to aid in that process.
One continuous theme in suggested classroom strategies is that of maintaining a friendly
and relaxed learning environment, but research needs to be conducted to discover more
about the effectiveness of such strategies. Thus, this study would aim to answer a very
specific question: How does the teacher’s attention to creating a relaxed and pleasant
environment, specifically in the form of genuine and continuous smiling, contribute to a
second language learner’s level of motivation in the classroom?
Method
Participants
This study will take place at the English Language Institute at The University of
Texas at Arlington, where there is a wide variety of ethnicities represented in the student
body. The focus would center on two classes, named here as Class A and Class B, both
composed of 24 students, studying in an Intermediate level vocabulary class, and both
with the same teacher. While the same teacher will instruct both classes, the teacher
would be instructed to do different things for each class, which is discussed in greater
detail in the “Procedure” section below.

4. Materials
For this study, the researcher would use a questionnaire loosely based off of an
Attitude Motivation Battery Test (AMBT), but with questions that the researcher created
herself. The questionnaire will be comprised of 5 five-point Likert scale items (on a scale
of 1 to 5, 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree).
Procedure
As mentioned briefly above, the same teacher will instruct both classes. However,
in Class A, the teacher will be instructed to avoid smiling. The researcher will ask the
teacher to not make it obvious that they are avoiding smiling, and stress the importance of
reacting how they normally would if the occasion called for a smile in their opinion, in
order to keep the students from being suspicious or feeling anxious. In Class B, the same
teacher will be told to make a concentrated effort to smile regularly. Again, emphasis
would be added on the importance of not making it too obvious that they were trying to
implement more smiles, and to try to keep it as genuine as possible. The prescribed
behaviors for each respective class would remain consistent throughout the entirety of the
16-week course. Each class meeting, with both Class A and Class B, would be video-
taped in order for the researcher to monitor the teacher’s behavior. A meeting with the
teacher would be held before the next class meeting, if the researcher deems necessary, in
order to correct the teacher’s behaviors (ie if the teacher is smiling too much in Class A
or not smiling enough in Class B).
The questionnaire will be administered to the students at the conclusion of the
course (the last day of class). The students will be told that their participation is
voluntary, and their answers will remain anonymous and the teacher will not see them

5. unless they signed off on a statement of approval to disclose their responses to their
teacher, located at the bottom of the questionnaire.
Predicted Results
Tables 1 and 2, Class A and B respectively, would contain the mean scores for
each question with the standard deviation. The predicted results are roughly sketched out
in the tables. Table 3 contains the interpretation for the mean scores.
Table 3*: The mean score for each item would indicate the level of students’
motivation; the higher score indicated that students had high motivation, while the lower
score indicated low motivation.
Table 1: Mean Scores of Responses from Motivational Questionnaire (Class A)
ClassA(Non-smileyteacher)
MotivationItems x̄ SD
Q1: My classroom environment was encouraging and supportive. 2.34 .23
Q2: My teacher was friendly and approachable. 2.17 .11
Q3: I was generally excited to come to class and learn English. 2.53 .43
Q4: My teacher motivated me to learn. 2.57 .17
Q5: When told by my teacher to complete an assignment or perform a
task, I was generally eager to do so.
2.11 .09
Table 2: Mean Scores of Responses from Motivational Questionnaire (Class B)
ClassB(Smileyteacher)
MotivationItems x̄ SD
Q1: My classroom environment was encouraging and supportive. 4.48 .34
Q2: My teacher was friendly and approachable. 4.53 .23
Q3: I was generally excited to come to class and learn English. 4.46 .12
Q4: My teacher motivated me to learn. 4.60 .13
Q5: When told by my teacher to complete an assignment or perform a
task, I was generally eager to do so.
4.45 .29

6. Table 3:
* Table 3 comes from Kitjaroonchai, N., & Kitjaroonchai, T. (2012)
Discussion
As one might hypothesize, the mean scores for Class B would be higher than
those of Class A, with an overall average motivational level of “very high”. As the
questions on the survey are almost directly linked to a students’ motivational level, it is
implied that these higher means would be due to the fact that Class B felt more at ease
with their teacher and learning environment. Class A, as one might imagine, will produce
a lower set of means, averaging an overall motivational level of “average”. While the
teacher’s purposeful avoidance of smiling would not de-motivate, per se, the students in
Class A, we can certainly surmise that the teacher’s purposeful display of continuous
smiles would contribute significantly to achieving higher motivational levels for the
students in Class B. Therefore, it would be fair to suggest that teachers take note of their
in-class smiling (or lack thereof), and make a conscious effort to implement more smiles
in order to build motivation in their second language learners. To build on knowledge of
the teacher’s role in increasing students’ motivation, further similar studies could be done
on any of the other nine strategies from Dörnyei’s list. This would provide teachers with
even more pedagogical applications that they could have ready for their classroom and

7. use with confidence. Another suggestion for a follow-up study is one that could be done
on a single second language class in which they take a pre-test, gathering motivational
levels before meeting the teacher, and comparing those results with those from the post-
test after having been taught by said teacher, who was instructed to continuously smile at
his or her students. In this way, further implications can be made about the effectiveness
of creating a pleasant classroom atmosphere, by which it is hypothesized that students’
motivational levels will increase over a continuum.

8. References
Dörnyei, Z., & Csizér, K. (1998). Ten commandments for motivating language learners:
Results of an empirical study. Language Teaching Research, 2(3), 203-229.
Kitjaroonchai, N., & Kitjaroonchai, T. (2012). Motivation toward English language
learning of Thai students majoring in English at Asia-Pacific International
University. Catalyst, 7(1).
Noels, K. A., Clément, R. and Pelletier, L. G. (1999). Perceptions of teachers’
communicative style and students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The Modern
Language Journal, 83: 23–34.