EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Motivational Strategies

This study explores the relationship and interconnections between EFL teachers’ beliefs and their motivational practices in the classroom. The present study combined qualitative and quantitative methods of research. First, the motivational practices of 30 teachers in two private language schools in Tehran were explored with a classroom observation instrument, the Motivation Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT) which was used to estimate the time that teachers spent for each motivational strategy. Then, teachers’ beliefs were examined through the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) and an open-ended questionnaire aimed to assess beliefs about motivational strategies. The quantitative results indicated that the higher the teachers’ scores on the BALLI, the less frequently their use of motivational strategies in the classroom. The findings based on qualitative data, drawing largely on data from observations and the open-ended questionnaire, showed that although teachers were observed to generally follow their beliefs, there existed several points of difference between their beliefs and practices. Also, there was evidence that what teachers practice in the classrooms does not always impact their beliefs.