LIBYAN TEACHERS' BELIEFS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF USING MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES IN OTIVATING PRIMARY SCHOOL'S LEARNERS

Abstract

Thepaperinvestigates English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ beliefs about the importance of using motivational strategies with formative learners (aged 11-12) of English in Libyan public schools.The study employs a large scale empirical survey to collect the data. Seventy six EFL teachers rank a list of 48 motivational strategies on a Likert scale (1-6) from‘not important’ (1) to ‘very important’ (6). The quantitative results reveal that EFL teachers believed motivational strategies were highly relevant in motivating learners in the early stages of learning English as a foreign language. The four most important motivational clusters encompass ‘proper’ teacher behaviour, encouraging learners’ self-confidence, recognizing students’ efforts and creating a productive and relaxed classroom climate. Less importance areattached to strategies related to increasing learners’ goalorientedness, familiarising learners with second language (L2) values, promoting learners’ autonomy, and promoting group cohesiveness and group norms.