An Investigation into the Sources of Foreign Language Motivation Among Iranian University English Language Teachers

Teachers have a key role in students’ learning and academic achievement. Although teacher motivation is an important concern for educational authorities and managers, it has not yet been adequately addressed by research in English as a foreign language setting (EFL). This research, therefore, aimed to bridge the gap by investigating sources of motivation among EFL teachers working at the universities of Golestan Province, Iran. To this end, 50 teachers including 31 males and 19 females participated in the present resarch. To collect the necessary data, a Language Teacher Motivation Source (LTMS) questionnaire was adapted from the existing literature. The questionnaire interrogated four sources of motivation; that is, (1) authority/colleague related; (2) economic; (3) work satisfaction; and (4) student-related factors. The questionnaire included 36 items; participants were asked to show their agreements by selecting an option on Likert- type scale whose values ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The results of descriptive statistical analyses revealed that all of the four factors including authority/ colleague related, economic, work satisfaction, and student-related factors can be the source of EFL teachers motivation. Work satisfaction and studentrelated factor were ranked as the strongest teacher motivational factors, followed by economic, andauthority/ colleague related factors, respectively. The findings of the present research have some pedagogical implications which can bring the fruitful results for language teachers and authorities at university level

کلیدواژه ها:

Motivation ، Teacher Motivation ، Foreign Language