Pedagogical implications for practitioners

Having completed this study, I am treating it as a priority to disseminate the results as widely and carefully as possible, in order to encourage practitioners to incorporate relevant findings into their ongoing professional development. Teacher 31 seemed keen to leam what the literature suggested, and to learn about the results o f the study. This

encouraged me to believe that both teachers and students have gained from this study, even if only to a minor extent. I am therefore optimistic that through a well-planned

dissemination o f the results, positive change can be achieved.

Since ‘practitioners do not, on the whole, read the research’ (Ur, 2013, p. 53), dissemination o f results from relevant studies is particularly important. Colleagues will not, therefore, merely be presented with the results but w ill be encouraged to discuss the issues o f motivation and anxiety with their students, following Yashima et al. who maintain that ‘psychology mirrors the effectiveness o f teaching’ (2009, p. 42). Teachers need to consult their students and to become familiar with their students’ learning styles and/or preferences. They should embrace this knowledge when preparing lessons, in order to include a variety o f activities to suit different preferences and needs. In addition, they should also take steps to find out what motivates their students and what could help alleviate their anxiety. This could be done in a combination o f ways which are discussed below.

For the motivational aspect, teachers could ask their students to write accounts, as was done in this study. Since beginning my investigation three years ago, I have built this into my curriculum and have found that students appreciate it and enjoy being consulted. This is supported by Taylor (2013) who reported on a girl who admired her teacher for asking them on the first lesson about their personal likes and dislikes so as to incorporate them in her lessons. Since the MSBQ (see Appendix A l, pp. 189-192) is a simple and reliable instrument, it could usefully be administered to students by their teachers. An improvement might be a slight modification i.e. to ask the students on a scale o f 1 - 5 how motivating they perceive the strategies and behaviours to be. Additionally, or alternatively, teachers could hold a group discussion on the subject. This is likely to be well received by the students, as teacher presentations or cultural discussions were common responses in all student data sources related to the motivation o f students. Student discussions were also popular. This suggests that discussions o f different kinds should be built into the

curriculum.

It might also be o f value to the teacher to access their students’ personal level o f motivation, using the small and easy to analyse PLM, in the early stages o f the course and to follow this up later o a This would be a quick method o f assessing how well student motivation is being maintained or enhanced. Adjustments in teaching practices could be conducted accordingly.

Similarly, to assess foreign language classroom anxiety, teachers could administer the FLCAI in the early stages o f the course so as to assess the level o f anxiety and areas o f anxiety their students’ experience. It is simple to administer and to analyse. Following this, they could hold a class discussion on anxiety. This could be o f an impromptu nature or the teacher could tell the students to think about the topic for the next lesson. Javid (2014) also recommends discussing anxiety with students at the beginning o f the course. By allowing students to discuss their thoughts and feelings regarding anxiety ingroups, and then to relate the group’s thoughts to the class as a whole, oral practice is encouraged, and at the

same time the teacher learns about her students. This study demonstrated that by asking students what caused their anxiety and what helped alleviate it, as well as measuring their anxiety with the FLCAI, a more complete assessment o f the realities o f the classroom could be made.

All the motivational teaching strategies and behaviours (MTSB) included in the Motivational Strategies and Behaviours Questionnaire (MSBQ) were found to be significantly correlated with student motivation, but this is not unexpected since 203 students and six teachers had contributed to the generation o f items used in the creation of the MSBQ. The FLCAI (Walker and Panayides, 2014) was also developed using items generated from data provided by students and teachers in this study. Since both instruments have been shown to have a high degree o f validity and reliability, they could prove useful to teachers wishing to generate student profiles in order to make decisions regarding how to adjust the curriculum to the needs o f the students. In my experience, the content o f a curriculum may be rigid, while still allowing for flexibility in the ways in which it is delivered. Consistent with Rosenholtz (1991), while less certain teachers tend to stick to routine practices, more confident ones experiment and are flexible.

Variables found to increase test anxiety included a lack o f state validity in the test or students being faced with questions which were unfamiliar to them (Horwitz and Young, 1991). Young (1999) additionally states that student perceptions o f the clarity o f test instructions have an influence on their reactions to language tests. Thus, teachers should ensure that they provide clear instructions and test what is taught, as well as informing their students o f the aims and content o f the test before administering it. Objective scoring could also help. Personal experience has shown that a gentle tone o f voice and a friendly smile can also ease test-anxiety.