Alignment of Motivational Strategies: The Perceptions of Teachers and Students

In order to enhance ESL students’ motivation to learn learning English, teachers around the world have been employing various motivational strategies in classrooms. However, there is scarce research focusing on both alignments and misalignments of secondary students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of motivational strategies (MS) and teachers’ use of motivational strategies in English lessons. Based on the investigation of 150 secondary students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of MS and 50 teachers’ use of MS, the alignments and misalignments of the perceptions of motivational strategies of secondary students and teachers are analysed in this paper. Result shows that teachers use most MS which students view as effective, however, there is significant difference between students’ evaluation and teachers’ use on some MS. Interview responses reveal that the alignments of the perception of MS between teachers and students are mainly attributed to the good impacts of those MS on teaching and learning, while the misalignments are mainly from the different perceptions of the impact of some MS and heavy workload of teachers, causing underutilization of some effective MS.