Success at What Price? Motivational Complexities (ELT).

A Survey of Language Learning Motivations within a cohort of German Trainee Teachers

of English, 1994 -2000

W A Brodie

September 2003

A dissertation presented in part fulfilment of requirements for the

degree of

Master of English Language Teaching

The Queen’s University of Belfast

Institute of Lifelong Learning

Success at What Price? Motivational Complexities.

Success at What Price? Motivational Complexities

2

Acknowledgements

I should like to record my appreciation of the quality of teaching provided by the

Queen’s University TEFL Centre tutors during these past two years. My warmest

thanks go to Dr Tony Ridgway, Dr Steve Walsh, Tom Morton and John Gray, whose

seminars were always well-prepared, informative and stimulating. I am grateful,

too, that they always had the courage to challenge opinions with a directness that

was a tonic!

Thanks especially to my wife - who gave me my initial motivation and ongoing

support for this 60,000-mile servicing of my own academic skills.

Special thanks also to Danny and Wolfgang for their delightful hospitality during

two memorable visits to Germany - and for their invaluable discussions on the

“Sonderprogramm” in Brandenburg.

And to generous Christine.


3

Abstract

This research focuses on language learning motivations within a group of 820 trainee teachers of English in

the German Federal State of Brandenburg between the years 1994 and 2000. The unique social and

political situation in former East Germany post-1989 engendered a fascinating spectrum of motivational

mixtures among these participants - from pure intrinsic interest in learning English at one end to fear of

redundancy at the other due to falling birth rates and the threatened disappearance of previous subject

specialisms.

Motivational mixtures among this target group were researched using constructs and research instruments

that draw on a number of previous research models – integrative/instrumental and intrinsic/extrinsic

paradigms, as well as a range of socio-cognitive heuristics. In response to calls from recent researchers

such as Oxford and Dörnyei, this study researches motivation as a multi-faceted phenomenon requiring the

researcher to get beyond the limitations of one or other particular motivational model which may tend to

oversimplify motivational complexities. There is also increasing awareness among researchers that

motivation is not a static phenomenon but changes over time with circumstances. This study, while not

strictly speaking longitudinal, has a longitudinal aspect. I have attempted to trace the development of

motivational mixtures during pre-actional, actional and post-actional phases of a three-year commitment by

participants to the English retraining programme.

In particular, I have used this multi-factorial and quasi-longitudinal approach to ascertain the range of

mixtures of motivations within the target sample. I found that most participants undertook the English

retraining programme with varied motivations reflecting intrinsic interest and significant external pressures.

I then sought to analyse whether intrinsic motivation levels waned during the actional phase under the sheer

pressures of involvement in the programme. On the contrary, results of this research have suggested that

intrinsic motivation grew stronger across the group at large. In the post-actional phase, this increased

motivation in at least 90% of the sample led to a generally positive commitment to ongoing linguistic

improvement and to using English for pleasure and professional purposes. The State-institutionalised

retraining scheme was a success achieved at considerable personal cost by participants - but real,

personalised and lasting motivation among the participants was not part of the sacrifice.

Most interestingly, it emerges in this research that different types of motivation seemed to fuse in

individuals’ experience - particularly under sustained pressure. It proved necessary to use a wide range of

motivational constructs and terminology to map out the diverse motivational components within the

sample, but interview statements seem to point to a blending of motivations that transcends even this multi-

factorial approach. “Personal interest” which began as intrinsic interest in English itself, was seen to fuse

with instrumental sources of motivation and, when under pressure, to be fired by something even more

deep-seated - a raw, primal motivation best summed up in the phrase “This is not going to beat me.” It

emerges therefore that motivational complexities may be misleadingly interpreted if we do not perceive

how new compounds evolve in each individual as a result of blending motivations across time and under

pressure. Just as water is more than a combination of its separate components, hydrogen and oxygen,

motivation may be described by analysing its individual components, but the whole is always more - and

other – than the sum of the parts.

This result underlines the need to be careful not to channel motivation research findings into too narrow

categories based on traditional models of motivational theory, and points to the need for further research to

establish more subtle, differentiated and individualised profiles of motivational mixtures within groups and

individuals.


4

Success at What Price? Motivational Complexities.

A Survey of Language Learning Motivations within a cohort of German

Trainee Teachers of English 1994 -2000

Contents

1. Background to the Research 1.1 Introduction

1.2 Personal Interest in the Brandenburg English Retraining Scheme and

Motivational Factors

1. 3 The Influence of Research Literature in Formulating Specific

Research Questions

1.4 Research Questions

2. An Overview of Research into L2 Motivation 2.1 Motivation as a Research Topic

2.2 Evolving Constructs of Motivation

2.3 Gardner and Integrative Motivation

2.4 The Intrinsic – Extrinsic Paradigm

2.5 Resultative Motivation

2.6 Social Cognitive Theories of Motivation

2.6. i Attribution Theory

2.6. ii Self-Efficacy Theory

2.6. iii Expectancy-Value Theory

2.6. iv Equity Theory

2.7 Towards a Synthesis: A Call for a More Broadly Based Approach

2.8 Conclusion

3. Research Design

3.1 Framework Considerations

3.2 Data-Gathering Strategies: Descriptive, Quantitative/Qualitative, and

Triangulated

3.3 Data-Gathering Instruments

3.3.1 The Questionnaire

3.3.2 The Interview

3.4 A Note about Samples

4. Research Results 4. 1 Number of Responses and Profile of Respondents

4. 1.i Age of Respondents

4. 1.ii Gender of Respondents

4. 1.iii Family Circumstances

4. 1.iv Successful Completion Rate and Dates of Involvement in the

Programme


5

4. 1.v Previous Teacher Qualifications of those Involved in the

Programme

4. 1.vi Summary Profile of Respondents

4. 2 Initial (pre-Actional) Motivations

4. 3 Motivations During Participation (Actional Phase)

4. 4 Motivations after Course Completion ( post-Actional phase)

5. Conclusions

5.1. Answer to Specific Research Questions

5.1.i Range and Relative Importance of Initial Motivation Types

5.1.ii Pressure on Intrinsic Motivation During Actional Phase

5.1.iii Sources of Effective Motivation During Actional Phase

5.1.iv. Motivation in the Post-Actional Phase

5.1.v. Effectiveness of an Ecclectic Approach to Researching Motivation

5.2 Limitations of the Study

Appendix 1 Covering Letter for Postal Survey (German)

Appendix 2 Covering Letter for Postal Survey ( English)

Appendix 3 Postal Questionnaire (German)

Appendix 4 Postal Questionnaire (English)

Appendix 5 Extracts from Interviews

References and Bibliography


6

1. Background to the Research

1.1 Introduction

Motivation is a key area for research in the domain of second language learning in respect of

English both as a second (ESL) and as a foreign language (EFL). This research investigates

motivations for learning English within a cohort of 820 school teachers in the German Federal

State of Brandenburg between the years 1994 and 2000 by sample survey and interview. The

teachers were participants in a special retraining initiative (Sonderprogramm) organised by the

Brandenburg Education Ministry with the aim of providing that region of Germany with at least

500 qualified teachers of English for deployment in mainstream schools.

The pressures associated with this retraining scheme were unique due to the massive sociological

upheaval which followed the collapse of the Wall and the socialist regime in East Germany. Many

former East German citizens regarded the “Wende” (the political change) as the opening up of new

horizons with exciting new possibilities. A not insignificant number of the population saw and still

see these changes as at least ambivalent, if not a negative development in many respects. One of

the most remarkable sociological changes was that within a few years the birth rate in the former

East German states fell to around a third of what it had been pre-Wende. This meant the imminent

closure of schools and widespread redundancies. (See Tables 1 and 2 for a table of trends in births

and school population.) The Education Ministry cleverly linked these threatened job-losses with

the offer of retraining as English teachers, which would be a new growth area. Another source of

potential unemployment was among teachers of Russian. Whereas previously, Russian had been

compulsory in the school curriculum and English had been an optional subject, now roles were

reversed. There was a predicted sudden and enormous demand for English teachers at the same


7

time as the almost immediate disappearance of interest in Russian in many schools. For an

illuminating discussion of these and other educational and sociological changes following the

Wende see (Pritchard: 1999)

The Sonderprogramm initiative therefore seemed to offer new opportunities for those interested in

exploring new horizons, and in many cases this conveniently matched individuals’ fears of losing

their jobs. Even where there was little interest in English itself, participants might at least be

motivated by the prospect of enhancing career opportunities. At the same time the State’s need for

a large, trained cohort of English teachers would be met.

The initiative therefore seemed to offer a rich mixture of language learning motivations among

participants. There was apparent scope for researching a dynamic interplay between various

personal, integrative, intrinsic and external motivations. Moreover, as involvement in the scheme

meant a commitment of nearly three years for each group of participants, the programme

additionally offered scope for tracing the evolution of these motivations over an extended period

of time. Dörnyei points to the importance of a longitudinal view of motivation.

“This is of particular importance when the target of our interest is a sustained learning

process, such as the mastery of an L2, that can take several years to be successfully

accomplished…. Student motivation does not remain constant” (Dörnyei 2001: 82)


8

Table 1 Decline in Birth Rate in former East German States, 1987 - 1994

Year Live Births in Thousands

1987 226.0

1988 215.7

1989 198.9

1990 178.5

1991 107.8

1992 88.3

1993 80.5

1994 78.7

Source: Grund- Strukturdaten, 1995 - 96 ( in Pritchard: 1999)

Table 2 Decline in School Population in Brandenburg, 1994 – 2010

(State sector only)

Year Total School Population Primary Secondary (lower only)

1994/95 458,784 212,467 138,664

1995/96 467,483 209,589 140,593

1996/97 471,031 205,758 141,319

1997/98 466,823 195,827 142,328

1998/99 450,686 177,651 142,981

1999/00 431,765 157,942 141,785

2000/01 408,709 136,870 140,869

2001/02 385,070 117,230 137,560

2002/03 362,530 101,050 132,190

2003/04 341,710 92,740 121,220

2004/05 322,430 93,510 102,700

2005/06 302,740 97,430 83,910

2006/07 284,640 102,280 66,730

2007/08 268,170 106,690 55,970

2008/09 254,840 109,500 53,940

2009/10 244,620 110,960 56,270

Source: Schulressourcen-Konzept SRK. Enwicklung des Ressourceneinsatzes für

Unterricht und Beschäftigung and Schulen unter Berücksichtigung der Landesfinanzen.

(2002) Brandenburg: Ministerium für Bildung, Jugend und Sport


9

1.2 Personal Interest in the Brandenburg English Retraining Scheme

and Motivational Factors

My personal interest in this retraining scheme and learner motivation arose out of my professional

contacts. Through my work as Adviser with the North Eastern Education and Library Board, I had

occasion to visit Brandenburg in 1994 and with the Referentin für Internationalen Lehrer- und

Schüleraustausch (Adviser for international teacher and pupil exchange) began to discuss the

possibilities of developing a regional partnership between the Brandenburg Education Ministry

and our Education and Library Board. This partnership is now thriving and has been ratified by an

official partnership Protocol, signed in N Ireland during a visit by the Brandenburg Education

Minister in 1998.

One of the first initiatives which we jointly undertook was the organisation of English language

summer schools in the North Ireland Hotel and Catering College for 80 teachers from

Brandenburg who were in the early stages of their involvement in the retraining initiative known

as the Sonderprogramm. This was followed by a series of work-placement programmes in schools

in the North Eastern Board area for Brandenburg teachers involved in the retraining programme.

Working with these visiting teachers, I became aware of the great range of motivations within the

group. At the one end, there were those who had a strong personal interest in learning English,

viewing the programme as an opportunity to profit from opening borders and travel in a wider

world, especially to English speaking countries. At the other end there were reluctant learners,

who had for example specialised in Russian and now felt forced to diversify in a situation foisted

upon them as their old world was dismantled in favour of a new westernised society. In between

there were many who had both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in mixed measures.

Additionally, some of the participants had confident attitudes to their language learning abilities


10

whereas others perceived their progress as an uphill struggle. Some teachers enjoyed aspects of the

programme more than others and found it easier to be motivated in those areas; this varied from

individual to individual. For some, it was a pleasant surprise to find themselves staying for two or

three weeks in an English speaking country (for many of them this also involved their first trip

outside Germany and their first experience of air travel), whereas others, due to family

commitment and/or general insecurity found this a less than welcome imposition.

The lid on top of this mixture - providing pressure-cooker intensity to activate and blend these

motivations in different varieties - was the sheer rigour of sustained effort demanded by the three

year course on top of work and family commitments. The retraining course lasted five semesters,

followed by a run-up study period to final examinations, and was accredited at degree level by

Potsdam University. The programme included

English language classes

English/American literature and culture studies

Language teaching methodology (including weekend residentials)

A compulsory three-week residential language course abroad (and a prior residential stay

in England or Northern Ireland for those who had to undertake a pre-course in order to

reach the necessary competence entry level)

Optional short work placements in England or Northern Ireland

Teachers undertook the retraining commitment on the basis of weekly day-release, though most of

the work and all of the residentials had to be managed by participants within non-working time.

As I maintained contact with these teachers over a number of years, it seemed to me that

participants’ personal enjoyment of the retraining programme was at times affected detrimentally

by the sheer pressures of involvement. Particularly where there was a sense of being compelled to


11

take part in this retraining, I thought this, combined with the pressure of involvement, was likely to

leave a residual sense of resentment which might outweigh intrinsic motivation in the long run.

Most teachers completed the programme successfully and achieved the targeted qualification.

Motivation levels were therefore high enough to ensure this successful outcome. But my question

was, “Success at what price?” While the State of Brandenburg was meeting its target for teachers

of English, and while individuals were achieving their target of gaining a qualification, were these

learners actually being de-motivated to such an extent that their interest in English would suffer

and they would avoid further opportunities to develop their language competence? Did intrinsic

motivation levels increase or decrease during and (crucially) after involvement in the programme?

Did individuals’ final mix of motivations differ from that of their pre-actional (before starting) and

the actional stages (during participation)? Were certain mixtures of motivation more resilient than

others? If so, why?


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1. 3 The Influence of Research Literature in Formulating Specific

Research Questions

These and other related questions were on my mind as I began to read literature on motivation

theories and research. My reading confirmed to me that this was an important area of research for

those concerned with English language teaching and learning. It was also immediately apparent

how fluid the area of motivation research is at present, offering potential for new investigative

approaches.

In particular, as highlighted in Chapter 2 below, researchers are increasingly aware that there is a

need to integrate different models of motivation used in research. The way through the confusion

of divergent models is to see what elements of these constructs supplement and complement each

other in a convergent strategy. A start on this has begun (some examples are quoted in Chapter 2)

and theorists such as Oxford and Dörnyei are calling for a more widely-based approach to research

that draws on features from various heuristics.

Encouraged by this reading, I adopted a best-fit approach to using elements and emphases from a

range of current models. This seemed to be particularly appropriate as my focus was on the range

and mix of motivations to be found within individuals in the retraining cohort in question. How

this eclectic approach is reflected in the structure of the data-gathering questionnaires and

interviews is explained in Chapter 3 on Research Design.

Another feature of current research, as explained in Chapter 2, is that motivation is increasingly

considered as a dynamic, changing state, rather than constant. There are calls from leading

researchers to map changes in individuals’ motivation over a period of time through longitudinal

studies. The Sonderprogramm, requiring nearly three years of intensive commitment by


13

participants, seemed ideal for this sort of investigation of motivation across time. Unfortunately,

sampling motivation before, during and after involvement in the scheme was not possible.

Questionnaires and interviews therefore had to rely on retrospective self-reporting by respondents.

With this strategy there is the attendant risk that memories have been clouded and perspectives

distorted. On the other hand, the fact that many of the participants completed their training a

number of years ago at least gives them the advantage of reviewing the programme from the

perspective of time and in the light of subsequent career developments, which means that on the

whole there is arguably more likelihood of objectivity in their responses.


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1.4 Research Questions

Based on personal experience and interest, and guided therefore by readings in current literature on

motivation, this research, which I describe in detail in Chapters 3 – 5, focuses on the following

questions.

Before proceeding in detail to describe my data collection techniques and analysing outcomes in

Chapters 3-5, Chapter 2 highlights specifically how the survey of current literature on motivation

was influential in my choice of investigative emphases, strategies and terminology.

Research Questions

1.4. i. How wide is the range of motivation types that can be charted in a

sample of the target cohort of learners of English at the pre-actional

phase i.e. before undertaking the retraining? What are the relative

importance-weightings of these motivations as perceived by respondents?

1.4. ii. Is there evidence that intrinsic motivation waned during the

actional phase under pressure of sustained commitment, particularly

among those who had higher ratings of extrinsic (instrumental)

motivation?

1.4. iii. What motivation types were most effective in sustaining

commitment when programme demands intensified (actional phase)?

1.4. iv. Is there evidence that in the post-actional phase, a sample of

participants showed significant decline in motivation to improve or

continue to use their competence in English?

1.4. v. How effective was an eclectic research approach, drawing on a

range of motivation constructs, for gathering and analysing data ?


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2. An Overview of Research into L2 Motivation

2.1. Motivation as a Research Topic

The importance of motivation in second language acquisition makes it a fruitful area for research.

Indeed many researchers have maintained that it is the single most important “learner difference”

(Ellis: 1985) or “student characteristic” (O’Malley and Chamot: 1990) influencing the learner’s

progress towards language proficiency - more important even than language aptitude. “Motivation

is probably the single most important characteristic that students bring to a learning task,” (ibid:

160).

Despite acknowledgement of the crucial role of motivation, and after four decades of intensive

research in this area, there remains much confusion about what motivation actually is, how it

works, and what heuristic models we can best use to describe it.

“Given the vast relevance of motivation, we would expect it to be of primary concern for

researchers interested in human achievement and learning… Given the long tradition of

motivation research we would expect to find some well-established motivation models that

have stood the test of time, along with some solid, theoretically sound educational

recommendations to help us improve the effectiveness of our teaching. This unfortunately

is not the case, In fact, the current state of motivation research could hardly be further from

this expectation: contemporary motivational psychology is characterised by a confusing

plethora of competing theories, with little consensus and much disagreement among

researchers. In fact we can say without much risk of exaggeration that motivation is one of

the most elusive concepts in the whole domain of the social sciences.” (Dörnyei 2001: 2)


16

2.2 Evolving Constructs of Motivation

The confusion surrounding definitions of motivation is due in part to the recent interplay of two

major forces in motivation research. On the one hand there has been the rather unyielding

influence of well-respected but near-monolithic models of motivation (two in particular which we

shall review - (1) the Integrative Model of Gardner and his associates; (2) the Intrinsic/Extrinsic

paradigm proposed by Deci, Ryan and others). In response to this there has been a reforming call

by subsequent theorists to consider other constructs of motivation, which has opened up the field

to many diverse and divergent considerations. The long-standing models have until recently shown

little ability to evolve under the influence of more recent findings, while understandably, those

wishing to shed new light on motivational theories have often not wanted to try to synthesise their

findings with what they regard as inflexible and outdated constructs. Recent researchers therefore

have tended to present their findings as alternatives unrelated to the traditional models, while

Gardner and his followers show little (though recently some) inclination to move their position to

accommodate new findings. To underline the newness of recent theories and to assert their

validity, recent researchers have used different terminologies - different from each other and

different from the traditional terminology of e.g. Gardner - so that students of research are

sometimes left bemused as to research findings fit together.

There have been exceptions to this “me in my small corner” approach. In 1995 Tremblay and

Gardner researched other “variables” which they posited would link Gardner’s traditional notion

of “attitudes” with motivational behaviour. Among these variables were self-efficacy, valence and

goal salience. This study pointed promisingly to the potential for thoroughly synthesising the

traditional integrative/instrumental construct with social cognitive models that emphasise the

importance of the learner’s individual views of self, attributions and expectancies. Significantly

though, in recent papers by Gardner and associates, these important factors have remained at the


17

level of “variables” and the main focus in their work has remained overridingly on “integrative

motivation.”

Gardner (in Dörnyei: 2001) has presented an evolved model of motivation which allows for

“Other support” and “Other factors” and acknowledges the place for example of interest in the

language learning process itself as a motivational factor.

“There may be other factors such as a particularly stimulating teacher or course that

promotes motivation. There is no reason to argue that motivation is driven only by

integrative factors ….It is also shown in Figure 11 that other factors might have direct

effects on Language Achievement. Thus, research has indicated that language learning

strategies (Oxford,1990), and /or language anxiety (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986);

MacIntyre and Gardner, 1989) and /or self-confidence with the language (Clément, 1980)

influence language achievement, though they might also have indirect effects through

motivation or language aptitude.”

(Gardner, in Dörnyei: 2001: 7)

This could be viewed as a step towards a major rethink of the integrative principle and where it fits

with the concept of intrinsic motivation (see 2.4 below) as well as social cognitive models of

motivation based on individuals’ internal perceptions. However, the point is made by Gardner, as

it were, in passing so that he can move on quickly to his main concern, which is, predictably, his

traditional one - integrative motivation.

“The model does not attempt to show all the possible links or even all the possible

variables, since the intent is to focus attention on the role of integrative motivation.” (ibid

– my italics and bold type)

Meanwhile, MacIntyre, MacMaster and Baker (in Dörnyei 2001) have taken cognisance of various

new (as well as older) models of motivation and tried to establish an empirical basis for synthesis

in their study “The Convergence of Multiple Models of Motivation for Second Language Learning:

Gardner, Pintrich, Kuhl and McCroskey”. Similarly, Noels (in Dörnyei 2001) makes an attempt

to show how two traditional major models of motivation can be mapped onto each other in her

1 The Figure Gardner refers to is reproduced on p 20 below.


18

“New Orientations in Language Learning Motivation: Towards a model of intrinsic, extrinsic, and

integrative orientations and motivation.”

There are therefore hopeful signs that researchers are beginning to see the need for a more flexible

approach to establishing models of motivation and a concomitant rationalisation of divergent

terminology used to describe these constructs. However, this emergent type of synergising

research is still a relative newcomer on the evolutionary scene and the past four decades have been

dominated by two models (Integrative/Instrumental and Intrinsic/Extrinsic), which we shall now

consider. In and around these models, but remaining largely separate, there has been a recent flurry

of independent newer approaches to the support of calls from Oxford, Dörnyei and others, which

we shall outline briefly.


19

2.3 Gardner and Integrative Motivation

The work of Gardner in the field of L2 motivation has of course been seminal by placing the

importance of motivation (of any kind) at the centre of the L2 research agenda.

“In 1959, Gardner and Lambert found that second language (L2) achievement was related

not only to language aptitude but also to motivation.”

(Tremblay and Gardner 1995: 505)

In particular Gardner’s “Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning” (1972) proved to

be a landmark, with its emphasis on the importance of integrative motivation, the desire to learn

“the language for the purpose of cultural/linguistic integration” (Oxford 1996: 2), as opposed to

the apparently less effective instrumental motivation, which is “motivation to learn the language

for an instrumental (i.e. practical) purpose, such as getting a better job, earning more money,

entering a better college or graduate school, and so on.” (ibid, p3).

Another important feature of Gardner’s “Socio-Educational Model” (Gardner: 1985) has been the

distinction between attitudes or “orientation” and motivation proper. Thus, a learner may have

reasons for learning a language, such as a positive attitude towards the target language culture and

community, but only when these attitudes are channelled into purposeful effort to achieve the goal

of language mastery can we talk of motivation as such. For further comment on this distinction

see Brown (1981).

In a recent publication Gardner (in Dörnyei: 2001) has presented a modified position of his

construct that leaves room for other variables beyond integrative and instrumental motivation as

originally understood, such as the role of learner “attitudes toward the learning situation”. (See

Figure 1.)


20

Language aptitude Language aptitude

Figure 1 (Gardner: 2001)

Although this slight shift in position may seem to suggest a more flexible view of motivation and

thus open up the way for a more synergised approach to establishing constructs of motivation, in

fact the picture is all the more confused by Gardner’s dogged determination to hold on

theoretically to the overarching supremacy of Integrative Motivation. Instrumental motivation, in

all its various types, is relegated to the “Other Factors” category.

Gardner’s research had its origins in the second language settings of Canada and integration was of

course a key issue in the language learning processes there, as his research revealed. However, in

view of the recent accelerating proliferation of English language teaching world-wide, with figures

of learners in the expanding Outer Circle (Kachru: 1992) estimated at around 1 billion, most of

whom will have very little opportunity to integrate in any real sense with target language

communities and for whom L2 learning is Foreign Language Learning, the relevance of the

integrative principle is now highly questionable in many learning contexts. Many of these new

learners of English will have predominantly instrumental reasons for learning the language in view

Integrativeness

Motivation

Attitudes toward the

Learning situation

Integrative motivation

Other

support

Other factors

Language achievement

Language aptitude


21

of job opportunities and a desire to compete economically. According to Gardner, a positive

attitude towards the target language culture is essential to the integrative principle. But in many

settings worldwide, motivated learners may have ambivalent or even negative attitudes towards

English-based cultures, perhaps viewing mastery of English as a way to compete with native

speakers and promote or protect their own political or economic interests. It is interesting to

remember that in the course of the 20th

century, as Central African countries strove for

independence, English was their chosen language of political struggle for emancipation from

English influence. (See Graddol, Leith and Swann (1996). Similar developments are traced by

Fennel (2001) in respect of English as lingua franca in a multi-lingual South Africa)

With the evident importance of instrumental motivation, particularly in respect of English learning

world-wide, Gardner’s model, which relegates this source of motivation to the “Other Factors”

category, can leave us with an unhelpfully one-sided view of motivational dynamics.

Equally, while Gardner has taken cognisance of the fact that “attitudes towards the learning

situation” are also a crucial factor in motivation for most, if not all learners, it is surely unhelpful

to try to squeeze this important area into a box labelled “integrative motivation”. (See Figure 1.)

Common sense and experience would tell us that this is a very different field and deserves to be

treated with parity alongside integrative motivation as traditionally understood. Only by stretching

the concept of “integrative motivation” to unrecognisably distorted limits could it be seen to

comfortably contain the sort of attitudes which Gardner himself lists under this heading, such as

“attitudes … directed towards the teacher, the course in general, ones classmates, the course

materials, extra-curricular activities associated with the course, and so forth” (Gardner: 2001). In

appearing to synthesise different aspects of motivation , it seems that Gardner has in fact made it

more difficult for researchers to position their new findings in a broader scheme of motivation


22

because of his insistence that everything should be seen as fitting into his integrative model.

Furthermore his insistence (Gardner: 1985) that integrative motivation is “extrinsic” along with

“instrumental” is at least questionable. As Noels says, “It might be argued…that the integrative

orientation is similar to intrinsic motivation in that it refers to positive attitudes towards the

activity and the learning process.”

Finally it seems unhelpful to take for granted, as followers of Gardner seem too ready to do, a

distinction between orientation (or attitudes) and motivation. At least, if this distinction is made, it

needs to be scrutinised very carefully and applied consistently in order for it to be useful. Gardner

for example says the following:

“It appears as though some researchers assess orientations or reasons (- my italics and

bold) for studying a second language, and equate these with motivation. As I have tried to

show in the preceding, however, the operative variable is motivation, not orientation.”

(Gardner 2001: 13)

There are some problems with this viewpoint. Firstly, logically, if a certain orientation has indeed

become a reason “for studying a second language”, then clearly this is nothing less than the

motivation for learning; it is the channelling of effort into positive action for a specific reason. But

earlier in this same article Gardner had defined integrativeness only as an orientation reflecting “a

genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the other language

community… (which) implies an openness to, and respect for other cultural groups…” ( ibid p 5).

This is something different from “reasons for studying a second language.” We can perhaps agree

that such a general interest may be defined as an orientation, or a set of positive attitudes. But as

soon as this orientation becomes a reason for beginning or sustaining a certain course of action (in

this case learning a language), then we are faced with more than a general orientation: it has surely

become a type of motivation.


23

Even Gardner’s own narrow definition of motivation agrees in two points with this common sense

view. He maintains that motivation involves expending effort in pursuit of a desired goal. In other

words motivation is goal-driven commitment to action. Surely we have both these elements in the

simple phrase “reasons for studying a language.” However, his third proposed constituent of

motivation i.e. fun and enjoyment, is more questionable. A student who applies him/herself

assiduously to the task of mastering a language, even where there is little enjoyment in doing so,

may equally be said to be motivated towards that course of action.

Gardner tries theoretically to isolate an abstract principle of human behaviour called motivation by

creating a hiatus between the reason for an action and the effort and attitudes involved in carrying

out the action itself. His definition of motivation seems to gravitate more towards the effort

involved in the pursuit of an action, whatever the source or cause of that motivation, whereas in

most normal usage motivation would seem more to reflect the set of reasons that have become

strong enough a force to dictate this course of action. Even more confusingly, Gardner does also

use the term “motivation” when referring to a specific type, viz “integrative motivation” as in

Figure 1. On the whole though he prefers to use the term “Motivation” to describe motivated

behaviour, rather than the reasons for this behaviour. In motivation research this strikes me as

unhelpful, where it is precisely the cause of motivated behaviour that is of greatest interest to us

and it suits research purposes very well to be able to talk about integrative, instrumental, intrinsic,

extrinsic or “personal” (as defined by Kane: 2000) motivations referring to these different sources

of motivational impetus.

We may agree that a general interest and a positive disposition towards something may be referred

to as an orientation - but once this becomes a reason for an action, it would seem unnecessary to

refer to this other than as “motivation”. Obviously, engaging in an action does involve the


24

investment of effort directed towards a goal. But this engagement in an activity is surely more

synonymous with the term “application” than “motivation”, which is the underlying drive that

determines this behaviour.

I would suggest that it is needless to feel bound to refer to motivation as “orientation” when the

latter has evolved into a reason for purposeful action that is actually carried out. Ellis to some

extent implies this concern as Kane points out (Kane: 2000), when he states that “there is

something of a mismatch between the theoretical definition of motivation which Gardner provides

and the operational construct he has investigated” (Ellis 1994: 511). The data collection

undertaken by Gardner, says Kane (ibid), seems to focus more on reasons for learning a language

than on the “behaviour and effort-related data” which Gardner’s contrived definition of motivation

should be seen to target if he is consistent.

However, the main criticism levelled against Gardner and his followers remains that there has been

an undue emphasis on the importance of integrative motivation. As Noels points out

“Although some studies indicated that the integrative orientation was a good predictor of

L2 variables… others found that the instrumental orientation was an equivalent or a better

predictor… Not only might both orientations support effort, the integrative orientation may

not even be relevant to many learners… This study thus brings into question the universal

necessity of the integrative orientation as a determinant of other motivational and

proficiency variables.”

(Noels 2001: 44)


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2.4 The Intrinsic – Extrinsic Paradigm

Deci and Ryan (1985) have been at the forefront of another major school of thought which, based

on self-determination theory, categorises motivation into two main types: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Essentially external factors which motivate a student to learn are said to create extrinsic

motivation, whereas the enjoyment of or interest in an activity for its own sake reflects intrinsic

motivation. “When people receive a reward such as money, praise, or the avoidance of punishment

for doing an activity, they are considered to be extrinsically motivated…If there is no apparent

external reward…they are said to be intrinsically motivated” (Deci 1980: 31 – in Kane 2000).

Based on the extrinsic-intrinsic model, subsequent theoreticians have identified sub-sets of

intrinsic motivation. Vallerand and associates (Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Brière, Sénecal,

Valiires: 1992) have pointed to

- Intrinsic-Knowledge

- Intrinsic-Accomplishment

- Intrinsic-Stimulation

referring respectively to the pleasure a learner derives from acquiring knowledge, overcoming

difficulties in a task and enjoying “the aesthetics of the experience” (Noels: 2001)

Extrinsic motivation is not seen to be merely a question of external rewards and threats which the

individual either positively responds to or rejects. According to Deci and Ryan (1985) there are

different ways in which these external pressures can be internalised by an individual and varying

degrees to which he or she integrates them within the self-concept.

- External Regulation2

- Introjected Regulation

2 Regulation is here understood as a motivational impetus which determines behaviour


26

- Identified Regulation

- Integrated Regulation

In the case of External Regulation, the pressures from outside are accepted as a purely external

system of rewards not connecting with any sense of inner goals or valid self development. In

Introjected Regulation, potential external rewards or threats are accepted as an internalised system

of rewards and behaviour is modified, but not because of any inner acceptance of the desirability

or rightness of the activity – rather to avoid for example shame of failure or some other loss.

Identified Regulation occurs when the individual accepts that an activity associated with external

rewards will be genuinely beneficial in supporting some other aspect of self-development.

Integrated Regulation is the most internalised of this subset and describes the attitude whereby

certain extrinsic rewards are perceived as fully integrated in an individual’s concept of self-

development. The external rewards are in harmony with the inner concept of goals and self

development. This remains different however from intrinsic motivation understood as motivation

where the enjoyment of the activity is an end in itself.

It has generally been hypothesised that intrinsic motivation is superior to extrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation can even have a negative effect by undermining intrinsic motivation, as Kane

points out (2000) referring to research done by Deci (1971, in Pittman, Boggiano and Main 1992),

“Extrinsic motivation… has also been found to actually reduce an established intrinsic

motivation, when introduced into an intrinsically motivating learning situation.” (Kane

2000: 29)

An important point made by Ryan (1995) though is that different types of motivation are no

indicator in themselves of the amount of effort a learner may invest in an activity, especially in the

short term, though they may point to a difference in long-term engagement because of associated

attitudes. Noels echoes this:

“…those people who have an intrinsic or self-determined orientation are likely to feel

positively about the activity and put in more effort over a longer period of time. In contrast,


27

the correlations between less self-determined forms and these variables are generally lower

or non-significant. …having internal or external pressures does not reliably predict effort,

persistence and attitude…Rather, it might suggest that such people [ i.e. those with “less

self-determined forms” - my interpretation] will be involved in the activity as long as that

contingency is present but less involved if it is withdrawn.” (Noels: 2001)

In current research, as investigators seek to apply useful measures and clear terminology, the

question faces us as to the extent to which we can merge the heuristics of the two main models in

2.3 and 2.4 above. Ryan (1995) for example sought to map the self-determination model onto the

socio-educational model proposed by Gardner by stating that the intrinsic and extrinsic types of

motivation may be seen as “orientations”. Taking Ryan’s use of “orientation” to be co-terminous

with “motivation” (as argued in 2.3 above) we can reasonably confidently establish a research

model where instrumental motivation is used as an interchangeable term with extrinsic motivation.

The question is more complex as to where integrative motivation falls within this intrinsic-

extrinsic paradigm.

In exploring this possible synthesis between intrinsic/extrinsic model and the

integrative/instrumental model, Noels (2001) points out that certain studies have - as might be

expected - indicated high correlation between instrumental orientation (which I am taking to be co-

terminous with “instrumental motivation”) and extrinsic motivation. However, in one study in

which she was involved there was equally high correlation with intrinsic motivation. This was due

to the definition used in that instance: Gardner’s measure of instrumental motivation, used in that

study, had included “the desire to develop knowledge and gain respect from others” (Noels: 2001)

alongside more obviously external factors such as career prospects.

This contradictory outcome, although isolated, highlights the need to review definitions carefully

if researchers are to make any real progress in synthesising motivation constructs that inform

current research. Dörnyei (2001: 213) emphasises this point and says “imprecise terminology, that


28

is, using different terms to denote the same concept and one term to denote different concepts, is

one of the most serious hindrances to advancement in the social sciences.”

In my research, I have used extrinsic as the equivalent of instrumental motivation. Unlike Gardner,

I would see integrative motivation as a type of intrinsic motivation. (Gardner tends to see most

motivation as instrumental, including integrative.) However, since the concept of integrative

motivation has been such a dominant one in motivation research, I considered that it would be

useful and illuminating in my research to treat it as a separate category alongside “personal

interest.”


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2. 5 Resultative Motivation

Ellis adds Resultative Motivation alongside Instrumental, Integrative and Intrinsic Motivation

(Ellis: 1994 and 1997). Some debate has focussed on whether success leads to improved

motivation or whether it is always the other way round. Ellis’s view, drawing on the work of

Skehan (1989) is that there is a dynamic interaction between the two. As motivation leads to

success, so the taste of success arouses greater motivation and stimulates further application on the

part of the learner.

As such, the resultative hypothesis bridges the gap between traditional models of motivation (2.3

and 2.4 above) with their focus on external rewards, integration, or intrinsic enjoyment, and the

newer social cognitive models based on self-efficacy and attribution theories. But the relationship

between the resultative hypothesis and these self-theories is not as straightforward as we might

have expected. Dweck maintains that “success in itself does little to boost students’ desire for

challenge or their ability to cope with setbacks” (Dweck 2000: 1). Rather it depends on how the

learners view their abilities, as fixed (the “entity theory”) or as malleable (the “incremental

theory”).

“A belief in fixed intelligence raises students’ concerns about how smart they are, it creates

anxiety about challenges and it makes failure into a measure of their fixed intelligence. It

can therefore create disorganised, defensive, and helpless behaviour.

“A belief in malleable intelligence creates a desire for challenge and learning. In fact, some

incremental theorists tell us that they worry a task will be too easy for them and,

essentially, not worth their while. Setbacks in this framework become an expected part of

long-term learning and mastery and are therefore not really failures. Instead they are cues

for renewed effort and new strategies.” (Dweck 2000: 37 -38).


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2.6 Social Cognitive Theories of Motivation

Research into L2 motivation is acquiring an ever broader base. As stated above, this development

has been given support by theoreticians such as Oxford and Dörnyei, though their work is itself

part of a general movement resulting from a belief that theories of motivation have been restricted

for too long by the influence of one or two major proponents.

In particular much consideration has been given to establishing an understanding of how self-

theories influence motivation. We can take a brief look at these theories here, though space does

not permit a full treatment. The important point for the purposes of this review is that all these

theories emphasise the importance of an individual’s perceptions of themselves vis-à-vis the world

around them with its challenges and opportunities. As such they have a different focus from the

integrative/instrumental theories and from the intrinsic/extrinsic model, though there is more

obvious scope for convergence with the latter.

2.6. i Attribution Theory

This refers to individuals’ views of whether success or failure is perceived as due to factors that

are internal to them such as effort or innate ability, or external factors beyond their control such as

the difficulty of the task or luck (Weiner: 1986). As shown in 2.5 above, Dweck (2000) develops

this theory a stage further and shows that internal factors such as intelligence can also be perceived

to lie outside the individual’s control, depending on his/her understanding of the nature of ability.

2.6. ii Self-Efficacy Theory

Bandura (1986) states that an individual’s behaviour will be motivated by their view of their

capabilities and their perception of how likely they are to achieve certain goals through their

behaviour (“outcome expectations”). This theory has been the basis for further research into

motivated behaviour by, for example, Pintrich and Garcia (1994).


31

2.6. iii Expectancy-Value Theory

This theory (Dweck: 1990) highlights the fact that an individual will engage in an activity when

there is a probability of success (expectancy) but also where the goal of the behaviour is valued

(valence). The corollary of this is the assertion that learners will tend to avoid challenges where

similar situations in the past have led to failure, punishment or embarrassment.

“Expectancy-value theory helps remind us that L2 learners’ expectancies of success or

failure are very important in determining their motivation. Other important factors include

L2 learners’ beliefs about whether their learning performance will lead to something else

(career enhancement, general enjoyment, greater cultural tolerance) and whether these

outcomes are meaningful and valuable.” (Oxford and Shearin, in Oxford 1996: 128)

As indicated in 2.2 above, Tremblay and Gardner (1995) made a start at broadening the socio-

educational model of motivation to include such cognitive variables as efficacy and goal-valence.

A full integration of these approaches however would require a shift in position so that important

personal motivations were seen to be more than “variables” in a predominantly integrative model

and that their relative effectiveness vis-à-vis integrative motivation would be considered from an

unbiased starting point.

2.6. iv Equity Theory

According to this theory, individuals are constantly weighing-up the expenditure involved in an

investment of effort against the value of expected outcomes. There is also an inter-personal

dimension to this theory. The individual needs reinforcement from significant others that the goals

achieved are valuable when weighed against the personal cost. Otherwise motivation will wane.

(Landy: 1985)


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2.7 Towards a Synthesis: A Call for a more Broadly-Based Approach

We have seen the beginnings of a synthesising approach to establishing and testing theories of

motivation. Dörnyei’s statement with which we opened this literature review could lead us to a

negative view of the “plethora” of divergent theories. But the fact that researchers are now

beginning to take a more convergent approach to these theories means that confusion can become

fruitful ground for synergy. The signs are positive and this will undoubtedly be the “shape of

things to come”.

My view is that in new research we need to be prepared to develop an eclectic attitude towards the

range of theoretical models available. We need to consider what we aim to explore in a piece of

research and take a best-fit approach, drawing on the most suitable components from a range of

constructs and not allowing ourselves to be limited by the parameters of any given model, however

venerable. This eclectic approach applies to the terminology as well. Limiting ourselves to one set

of terminology as opposed to another will inevitably lead us to excluding aspects of research

which could and should be targeted in a fully synthesised investigation.

Two other important considerations are emerging in current thinking. One is that individuals may

have a range of different motivations at any one time. This is a different issue from that of the

diversity of motivational constructs mentioned above. It is theoretically possible to use a range of

different constructs to analyse one type of motivation. But more importantly we certainly need to

draw on a range of constructs for research if it is true that individuals are motivated by a complex

range of goals, values and beliefs at any given stage in their learning. Dörnyei (2001) refers to

this as the “challenge of multiplicity.” Oxford reflects this view also when she calls for broadly

based research.


33

“Another research recommendation concerns the overall design of any investigation

involving motivation. Such an investigation must involve a multifactorial view of

motivation. That is, the construct of motivation cannot revolve around one simple idea,

such as expectancy; the construct must be broad and have many component parts.”

(Oxford and Shearin, in Oxford 1996: 141)

The other consideration is the temporal aspect of motivation. In the past, researchers have tended

to view motivation as more or less static in individuals. The reality is that both levels and types of

motivation will fluctuate and alternate over time and under the stimulus of evolving situations.

Oxford and Shearin therefore call for longitudinal studies:

“Research on L2 learning motivation should be conducted longitudinally, not just cross-

sectionally. Longitudinal investigations allow the tracking of motivation over time for the

same individuals, and the results of such research give us developmental data on changes in

motivation (intensity and type).” (Oxford and Shearin, in Oxford 1996: 141)


34

2.8 Conclusion

In view of the current state of research into motivation, the variety of models available and the

clear need for greater synthesis and less exclusivity, I have adopted a flexible, eclectic approach to

setting up my research into motivation, based on what I considered to be the best-fit options, not

allowing myself to be restricted by the terminology of any single construct. In doing so I have

been encouraged by Oxford’s and Dörnyei’s call to take a look at a range of types of motivations

in individuals and groups. As explained above, I use instrumental as an interchangeable term with

extrinsic. I categorise intrinsic motivation as “Personal Interest” in tracing and measuring the

sources of motivated behaviour among respondents. At the same time, although I would tend to

see integrative motivation as a type of intrinsic motivation, I have tried to isolate this particular

type for specific attention because of its historic importance in motivation research. I have also

included in my research instruments questions that allow respondents to indicate other aspects of

motivation explored in a various socio-cognitive models of motivational research, such as personal

confidence and social encouragement.

I have also been encouraged by Oxford’s and Dörnyei’s call not only to research range of types of

motivations but, importantly, how these can change over time. My research therefore has a

longitudinal aspect. This dual recommendation has confirmed for me what I had intuitively felt to

be a valid investigative strategy for looking at motivational complexities within a group of German

teachers learning English in the context of their professional retraining.


35

3. Research Design

3.1 Framework Considerations

Research into a range of motivational types among a large cohort of learners of English in

Germany was, by its nature, going to involve an exploration of complex dynamics. It would

therefore require careful construction of data-gathering instruments and a multi-angled approach to

analysing results. As shown in Chapter 2, researchers such as Oxford (Oxford and Shearin, in

Oxford 1996) are calling for a more “multi-factorial” understanding of motivation than has been

the norm in previous research into motivation. My view was that the target sample for this research

was well suited to demonstrating the complex interactions of a range of motivational factors, given

the unique pressures of the retraining programme in question as discussed in Chapter 1.

The complexity of investigating motivational dynamics is further compounded in that researchers

are beginning to understand that motivation is not a static phenomenon but a dynamic one that

therefore calls for a “longitudinal” exploration across time, rather than just cross-sectionally

(Oxford and Shearin ibid; Dörnyei:2001). While strictly speaking my research could not be truly

longitudinal, nonetheless, in line with this recent development in L2 motivation theory I felt it

important to include a focus on a temporal aspect in my data-gathering. The fact that the English

retraining programme involved a commitment of almost three years and that in most cases there

was by now a further interval of time since completing the programme, meant that there was scope

to trace the evolution of different motivations over time and how mixtures of motivations could

change under pressure.

More than ever, researchers are realising that simple explanations of motivational dynamics are

probably not sufficient. My research aimed to show how complex a picture could emerge from the


36

study of motivational dynamics within a sizeable group of respondents. I was encouraged therefore

not to limit myself to previous construct of motivation but to amalgamate aspects of these

constructs on the basis of a perceived best-fit approach. A truly complex picture needs a broadly

based framework in order to capture the range and variety involved.

“Quite clearly, L2 learning motivation is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. It does not

defy researchers, but it challenges them mightily to look beyond simple explanations.”

(Oxford and Shearin, in Oxford 1996: 143)

On the other hand, the danger in throwing the investigative net too wide is that results can be

superficial and yield only generalisations rather than an in-depth analysis of specific factors. In

addition to establishing a picture of the range and interaction of types of motivation across time

(e.g. research question 1.4.i), I therefore also focussed on specific questions which narrowed the

focus to what I predicted would be some of the main motivational issues - e.g. 1.4.ii (above)

focusing for example on the potentially negative impact of extrinsic factors on intrinsic

motivation. This prioritisation is in line with Dörnyei’s advice.

“Set up priorities among the relevant motivational influences; because it is unlikely that

any single project can cover all the relevant factors, narrowing down the motivational focus

is justifiable as long as the process is explicitly described and explained.” (Dörnyei 2001:

188)

In general I hoped to be able to paint a broad canvas reflective of the complex tableau of

individual motivations within the chosen sample, but with some specific issues of interest

highlighted in the foreground.


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3.2 Data-Gathering Strategies: Descriptive, Quantitative/Qualitative

and Triangulated

My research was descriptive, that is, it aimed to gather information in order to “describe and

interpret what is” (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2000: 169). As most of the experiences of the

respondents took place in the immediate past (though respondents’ present level of motivation vis-

à-vis those experiences was a key issue), it would not have been appropriate to consider an

experimental approach whereby variables might be manipulated in order to gauge different effects

on outcomes. Responses in this descriptive investigation would mainly require retrospective self-

reporting about respondents’ recent experiences.

The research would also be quantitative, though with a qualitative element. My main research

strategy was to conduct a quantitative survey by questionnaire. This seemed to me to be the best

way of getting statistically significant information from a group of respondents large enough to be

representative of the entire cohort of 820 teachers who had undertaken the retraining programme.

This type of quantitative information would, I hoped, suit an analysis that aimed to establish

correlations, patterns and comparisons. As Bell says (1987)

“The aim of the survey is to obtain information which can be analysed and patterns

extracted and comparisons made… in most cases, a survey will aim to obtain information

from a representative selection of the population and from that sample whole… in surveys

all respondents will be asked the same questions in, as far as possible, the same

circumstances.”

(Bell 1987: 8)

The emphasis on statistical returns and the assignation of numerical values to responses to

identical questions was quantitative in nature, allowing for a formulaic approach to interpreting

results. However, the fact that respondents were invited to interpret a range of personal

experiences retrospectively and rank-order responses according to subjective weighting meant that

there was inevitably a qualitative element in this survey.


38

Faced with the logistical challenge of surveying a large sample of teachers from all over the region

of Brandenburg, a postal questionnaire seemed to me to be the most practical way of conducting

this research. With a covering letter guaranteeing confidentiality (Appendix 1 - translated in

Appendix 2), I posted 200 questionnaires to a sample of the entire cohort of 820 teachers. This

sample consisted of 100 teachers who constituted a “systematic sample” (Cohen and Manion:

1994), and a further 100 who constituted a type of “stratified sample” (ibid) as explained in 3.4

below. In all, 50 responses were returned, which I analyse in Chapter 4.

Prior to posting, I piloted the questionnaire with five teachers from within the target cohort with

whom I already had personal contact. On the basis of feedback from these teachers, only minor

changes to the questionnaire seemed necessary, all of which concerned the wording of the

questions in order to improve clarity. To encourage a higher response rate, I decided to write the

questionnaire in German. It is reproduced in Appendix 2. A translation of the questionnaire is

given in Appendix 3.

A further qualitative element was introduced into the research by conducting follow-up, semi-

structured interviews. Respondents to the postal survey were invited to include contact details if

they were willing to be interviewed. In the invitation, I offered to conduct interviews in

Brandenburg. I simultaneously set dates aside for a five-day trip to Germany six weeks later.

From among the initial 20 responses which I received prior to this visit, I selected 8 interviewees

from among the 10 who had indicated willingness to take part. This selection of 8 interviewees

was to some extent a “purposive sample” (Cohen and Manion: 1994), but also a “convenience

sample” (ibid) in order to make my five-day itinerary logistically manageable. As the main

purpose of the interview was to confirm, clarify and further explore responses already obtained

from the questionnaires for the sake of demonstrating reliability and validity, I believed that


39

limiting the sample (by de-selecting only two potential interviewees) was a justifiable exception to

fully random sampling.

Six of the interviews were conducted one-to-one, another was a “group” interview involving two

respondents, at their suggestion. Interviews were recorded on cassette. To put the interviewees at

ease and to obviate comprehension difficulties or limitations on self-expression, respondents were

given the choice of replying in either German or English. All interviewees opted for German.

Relevant extracts from the transcripts are given in English translation in Appendix 3.

Finally, findings from the questionnaires were entered in a Spreadsheet which allowed scope for

analysis from a number of angles with the emphasis on establishing patterns and correlations in

respect of motivational dynamics. Particular attention was given to the sub-sample constituted by

those who were interviewed. Their comments were taken into careful consideration as

questionnaire data were being analysed and conclusions drawn in order to check reliability and

validity. Interview responses highlighted one significant area of deficiency in the questionnaire

survey, which is commented on in Chapter 4 and which signals a possible future topic for research,

as discussed in Chapter 5.


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3.3 Data-Gathering Instruments

3. 3. 1 The Questionnaire ( See Appendices 3 – 4)

3. 3. 1. i Manageablity and Reliability

The main challenge in devising a comprehensive questionnaire about a range of motivations and

their evolution over time was keeping it to manageable proportions. Respondents had to be willing

to complete and return it and not be put off by the length of time which they would feel necessary

for its completion.

As Appendices 3 and 4 show, the final result was a four-page, user-friendly questionnaire. To

encourage speed of response, open-ended questions were avoided. Apart from Question 4 (about

starting and finishing dates for the retraining programme) the 18 items were limited mainly to two

types of closed questions:

those for which a list of possible answers was given and respondents merely had to tick as

appropriate;

those for which respondents had to make choices and assign relative weightings within a

list of possible answers.

This approach had the virtue of saving respondents time in writing open-ended replies. More

importantly though it ensured a measure of comparability of data. This comparability was

necessary for the establishing of statistically significant patterns and reliable correlations of data.

This research was, in the final count, going to be mainly quantitative. Being able to manipulate

numerical responses from a large number of equivalent responses was important for showing

patterns of correlation.

The disadvantage of this approach was that inevitably a researcher will not be able to predict all

the possible variables that might be important for the research objectives. On the one hand,


41

offering a closed structure for responses helped ensure that the main emphases on the researcher’s

mind are dealt with by respondents. On the other hand there is the distinct possibility that the

researcher has neglected an unanticipated but important issue which respondents may otherwise

have wished to comment on.

This is why it was particularly important to triangulate results gleaned from the questionnaire-

survey by using findings from more open-ended interviews. As it transpired, in four of the eight

interviews, respondents talked with conviction about a key aspect of motivation which ought to

have been included in possible responses to the critical item on the questionnaire about sources of

actional motivation under pressure (viz Q.17 “What most motivated you to continue your study at

times when you found it difficult or burdensome?”). See Appendix 6: 907 – 922. In answer to this

question during interviews four interviewees expressed a deep-seated doggedness as their ultimate

determination, best summarised in phrases such as “This is not going to beat me”. This type of raw

motivation was not adequately covered by any of the suggested responses in the questionnaire.

In general, though, the interviews served to underline the reliability of the questionnaire. They

yielded the same general balance of responses from those interviewed as had been recorded by

them through the questionnaires. They are typical in most respects of the questionnaire returns

from the whole sample. The responses also broadly reflect the answers given under interview

conditions – though significant discrepancies are suggestive and explored in Chapter 5

“Conclusions”.

Generally, the one research tool, the questionnaire, seemed broadly to have yielded the same

outcomes as the triangulating instrument, the interview. The interviews confirmed that there was

no major misunderstanding of questions used in the questionnaire. Also the main areas covered by


42

questionnaire emerged naturally as the important discussions points in the fairly open-ended

interviews where candidates were relatively free to talk and expand at some length about their

experiences of the retraining scheme. The main exception to this, noted, above will be commented

on more fully in Chapter 5 on “Conclusions.” This issue however was more one of validity than of

reliability.

To further help ensure reliability, I also endeavoured to include cross-checking mechanisms within

the questionnaire. Questions were included which dealt with similar or related issues but from a

slightly different angle and using different wording. For example, responses indicating the

motivating effects of a stay abroad in Question 17 would be triangulated by responses to Question

18 where respondents indicated which aspects of the course they found most interesting. Any

major discrepancies between responses to Questions 15 and 16 about strategies for improving

English competence would indicate possible misunderstanding or inaccurate responses. This did

not occur. Similarly if respondents indicated that the course had been interesting/stimulating in

Question 14, we would expect some fairly positive answers to Question 18 about which aspects of

the course they found interesting.

Where responses were designed to be internally triangulated, I attempted to disguise this fact by

the sequencing within the questionnaire. For example, Questions 11 and 12 as well as Questions

15 and 16 all focus on current behaviour within the target cohort as indicative of levels of

motivation. But these were deliberately separated by questions which invited respondents to

review previous experiences. This disguising of triangulation techniques was a complementary

strategy to that of avoiding jargon terminology and potentially misleading categorisations. I did

not want respondents to be directed towards what they felt would be the expected answers if they

were to detect a preconceived pattern of categories or correlations on the part of the researcher.


43

With the generally accepted definition of reliability in mind, I was satisfied that the questionnaire

would meet this key requirement.

“Reliability is the degree to which we could expect the same results if we or other

researchers carried out the study again, using the same methods on another sample.”

(Marshall: 1997)

3. 3. 1. ii Validity

Questions of validity in the drafting of the questionnaire had to be addressed as well as reliability.

This issue is considered again below in the section on sampling and representativeness (3.4). In

drawing up the questions and lists of possible responses, my overriding concern was that the

questionnaire (and the linked interviews) would adequately solicit the data required to answer my

chosen research questions.

My main aim was to survey a range of motivational types without being restricted by any one

heuristic model. Question 9, for example, addressed initial motivation: “What were your reasons

for undertaking this further qualification in English?” The seven possible tick-box responses

covered a range of types of motivation including the deliberately open-ended “personal interest”

option to reflect intrinsic motivation alongside a number of predicted externally imposed reasons

(e.g. pressure from education authorities; fear of job loss). A social-cognitive dimension was

allowed for in the option reflecting “Earlier Successes in Language Learning”. The learners’ own

views of themselves as potentially successful language learners was an important issue.

Dovetailing into this was the option of indicating “integrative motivation” separately (“The desire

to have more contact with English-speaking people/countries.”) Arguably this could have been

seen as already covered in the general “Personal Interest” option. However, as integrative


44

motivation has been a major construct in research into motivation over recent decades, I

considered it important to allow space for this item in its own right. This also was a solution to the

problem which has bedevilled motivational research and which in itself could render outcomes of

research invalid, namely the problem of definitions of categories. An instance of how confused or

overlapping definitions could result in a misleading use of terminology and therefore yield

contradictory and invalid research results was noted in one case in point in 2.4 above. My

approach, therefore was to

take a step back from traditional models of motivation

assess intuitively what factors would be important to the cohort in question

resist the temptation to use jargon terminology in the questionnaire which might indeed

have led to skewed results

not impose categories of definition of motivational types at this early stage.

Motivation during the retraining programme (actional phase) was focussed on particularly in Q17

(“What most motivated you to go on with your studies at times when things were difficult or

burdensome?”) The same approach was used as in assessing pre-actional motivation, namely to

anticipate a range of possible sources of motivation, both internally determined and externally.

The integrative motive was addressed in assessing the positive (or otherwise) impact of a period of

residence abroad. I felt this to be a valid inclusion because, as noted above, for many of these

students the retraining programme would provide their first opportunity to spend time in an

English-speaking country. I anticipated this would be a major source of motivation. This was to

some extent internally triangulated by Question 18 which allowed respondents to indicate which

aspects of the programme they found most stimulating, including the response-option

“Stay/Course abroad.”


45

Again the social cognitive aspects and the issue of resultative motivation were addressed in the

response-option “Earlier successes”. This was left deliberately vague in order to allow students to

recollect and record a generally positive attitude resulting from growing or previously acquired

confidence. It did not matter whether this predisposition was a result of experiences prior to

starting the programme or arose from successful experiences during the programme. The important

issue was that this was recognised a source of motivation which could be tapped “when the going

got tough.” How respondents viewed their own successes, the issue dealt with so comprehensively

by Dweck (2000), was triangulated to some extent by Question 14 (“Did you find the course of

study…”) where a response-option was “A welcome intellectual/professional challenge.” If there

was some indication of “challenge” being “welcome” this would reflect a social-cognitive view

that success was largely within the control of the individual rather than in the either the task being

too easy or the role of luck. ( See 2.6.i above on Attribution Theory.)

Social aspects of motivation - including the need to belong and to receive positive validation from

others - is developing in current thinking as an important new focus in L2 research. This aspect

was targeted by my questionnaire in the response-option “Encouragement by friends/family.”

However, a decision was necessary as to how deeply to go into this aspect of motivation. It is an

important area. But as Dörnyei acknowledged (2001- section 3.1 above) it is necessary to

prioritise issues – especially if one is adopting the multi-faceted view of motivation encouraged by

Oxford et al (1996). I felt that for the purposes of this research it was sufficient to indicate the

presence (or non-importance, as the case may be) of this purely social dimension. For the last of

my research questions - namely how effective was this eclectic approach in devising research

instruments, conducting survey research drawing on a range of constructs - I felt it would be

adequate (i.e.) valid if I could show that a variety of aspects of motivation were at least reflected in

my research findings, even if not all of these could be delved into in depth. I believed it would be


46

interesting to see which aspects emerged from my research findings as meriting further research

and I had in mind that the impact of social factors may be one such area.

The central questions about motivation before starting and sources of motivation during the course

were designed to reflect changes in the relative importance of motivational types at these stages.

This would allow a comparison of factors and as such I felt this was a valid strategy to answer my

research question about the impact of external pressures especially on intrinsic motivation.

Post-actional motivation was another main research issue. My title question “Success at what

price?” implied a tension between motivation that in many cases was largely externally determined

and the longer lasting intrinsic (or integrative) motivations. In other words, although there may

have been high enough levels of external pressure, combined with a self-efficacy or attribution

perceptions which motivated candidates enough to finish the course successfully once started,

would there be a waning of interest and enthusiasm afterwards, when the pressure was lifted and

the instrumental rewards achieved and perhaps later discounted? How did the learners view their

participation in retrospect? This issue was addressed by Question 13 (Was the decision to

undertake this course of study…?” and Question 14 (“ Did you find the course of study…?) but

outcomes from this question were triangulated by Questions 11, 12 and 16, asking respondents

whether they would like to study OR teach more English and whether they had a generally positive

attitude to continuing to improve their competence in the language.

The fact that four questions focussed on learners’ current behaviour and attitudes linked with their

retrospective perspective helped ensure validity in establishing research outcomes from these

responses. A further validating strategy was to ask candidates if they were teaching more English

than before they started the programme (this would be indicative – though not on it own, but in


47

conjunction with responses to Questions 11,12, 14 and 16), and crucially if not, why not. Was this

due to factors outside their control or was this their own choice – and therefore arguably a

reflection of current negativity towards English?

In general, I attempted to ensure that my research questions were adequately reflected in the

design of the questionnaire, and in the interviews which followed the same lines of enquiry. In the

response-options to key questions I covered the range of motivation types which I had set out to

explore as outlined in Chapters 1 and 2 above. I also devised the questions and responses in such a

way that comparability of responses was facilitated in order to establish correlations across the

various stages of motivation, thus giving the study a certain longitudinal aspect, as intended.

Focussing more on certain aspects of motivation was an inevitable choice which had to be made in

order to keep this research to manageable proportions, but I did not believe that would invalidate

findings where I was able to show the existence of a range of motivations at different stages and

acknowledge that some of these could profitably be explored in more depth in future research.

The big question of validity remains the accuracy of respondents’ recollections. Both the

questionnaire and the interviews relied on respondents’ being able to give an objective assessment

of influential factors which inevitably were subjectively perceived. This problem was of course

compounded by the fact that some of questions required respondents to re-visit experiences they

had five or six years previously. However, I felt this would not invalidate my research findings if -

anomalies in responses could be detected and isolated through internal triangulation within

the questionnaire;

anomalies in responses could be detected and isolated through triangulation of responses

between the questionnaire and the interviews;


48

a numerically significant number of responses could be obtained and clear correlation

patterns detected across the cohort.

Ideally of course, motivational dynamics would have been monitored at various stages before,

during and after participation in the retraining programme. This would have made this a truly

longitudinal study - but unfortunately was not possible within current constraints.

3. 3. 2 The Interview ( See Transcripts- Appendix 6)

“Freedom to allow the respondents to talk about what is of central significance to him or her

rather than to the interviewer is clearly important, but some loose structure to ensure all topics

which are considered crucial to the study are covered does eliminate some of the problems of

unstructured interviews.”

(Bell 1995: 94)

Given the closed nature of the questionnaire used in the survey, it was important, as stated in 3.3.1

above, to be able to triangulate findings with interviews of a more open nature. I decided therefore

on a semi-structured approach to interviewing whereby I would cover the same topics with each

interviewee, though not necessarily in the same order, using the same wording, or allowing the

same amount of time for each area of response. I would give the respondents scope to develop

answers as they felt necessary and would to some extent take my cue from them. Significant

extracts from transcripts of five of the interviews are given in Appendix 6 as representative of the

entire eight interviews.

The interviews lasted between 25 and 45 minutes. I interviewed eight out of ten respondents who

had indicated a willingness to take part. Six of these were one-to-one and another was a

simultaneous interview of two respondents at their request. Interviews took place in various towns

in Brandenburg. Interviewees had the option of having the interview conducted in German or

English. Most of the dialogue was in German. This helped put respondents at ease but also helped

ensure reliability. On the one hand there would be less possibility of misunderstandings due to


49

linguistic difficulties. On the other, candidates were considerably more likely to be able to express

themselves adequately in their native tongue. All interviews were recorded.

The interviews covered the same aspects as explored by the questionnaire. In particular attention

was given to the key questions relating to

Respondents’ motivations for undertaking the programme of study.

This was achieved by allowing interviewees to discuss their previous professional

experience and to discuss the changes that affected them prior to undertaking the course of

study. This was the sort of area which could not be adequately covered in a closed

questionnaire and needed time for respondents to elaborate. These discussions had the

effect of underlining reliability of responses to the questionnaire, which inevitably had to

be given in very summary statements (e.g. “Pressure from school authorities”.) What was

understood by “pressure” and how acutely this was experienced by the respondents could

be gauged more effectively in a more open discussion of these factors.

Sources of motivation during times of pressure

Interviewees confirmed (as pre questionnaire) that the course was extremely demanding,

especially on top of work and family commitments. They all spoke with considerable

feeling about this pressure. This seemed to mirror the high scores given to response-

options in the questionnaire dealing with the pressure aspects of the programme.

Interviewees’ responses to how and why they were motivated to continue when under

pressure also confirmed what had been indicated on their questionnaire returns.

However, two new aspects emerged from the more open-ended interview discussions about

participants’ actional motivation.


50

Firstly, it was a surprise to me how intense the pressures had been for these respondents.

Four of the eight interviewees had to take time off work because of illness which they said

was directly related to the stresses of their retraining (e.g. see Appendix 6: 883-884).

This type of qualitative response was yielded effectively by the semi-structured interview

context and could not have been picked by questionnaire alone – unless the questionnaire

had invited a more open-ended discussion of personal experiences. The questionnaire had

adequately captured the fact that the course was seen as very demanding for nearly all

participants who replied. What the interview highlighted was the sheer intensity of these

pressures. Looking at results gleaned from both “instruments”, though, I felt my selection

of this particular cohort for research into motivation was validated on the grounds that

motivation emerged as an utterly critical factor in the success of the programme at large

and in the experiences of the participating individuals. The retraining programme did

prove to be a fruitful field for observing motivation at work because motivations - of

whatever types - were so greatly called upon in it.

The other significant finding emerging from these interviews was the raw, almost primal

motivation type expressed in the sort of phrase “I am not going to let this beat me!”

mentioned by four interviewees as critical to their sustained involvement. ( See Appendix

6: 647 – 657; 910 – 918; 1231 – 1236; This type of driving power seemed to be neither

intrinsic, nor extrinsic as understood traditionally by researchers. It plainly also has little to

do with integrative motivation as traditionally understood. Nor does it fall readily within

any of the socio-cognitive theories outlined in 2.6 above. This interview outcome therefore

highlighted an area which was unanticipated and to some extent therefore neglected in the

questionnaire, though it is arguably a connection with the response-option given for


51

Question 14 “A welcome intellectual/professional challenge.” The key word has perhaps

been taken as challenge.

Motivation to learn/use English as evidenced in current behaviour

The other main area covered in the interviews was respondents’ current attitudes to

English. Again, responses confirmed reliability by yielding the same information as the

questionnaires. They also confirmed validity in that assumptions made about the

connection between retrospective appraisal of involvement and current attitudes to further

developing competence in English could be explored in the context of present commitment

to teaching English. High levels of current motivation in all eight interviewees were in

evidence in interview responses as they had been in questionnaire responses.


52

3.4 A Note about Samples

Validity in a quantitative survey depends not only on the appropriateness of the research tools used

and on their reliability, but also on

the representativeness of the sample targeted;

the representativeness of the group of respondents from within the sample targeted.

The initial 100 questionnaires were posted to those participants who had spent time in Northern

Ireland either on summer school courses or on work-placements. As such they constituted a sort

of “Stratified sample” (Cohen and Manion: 1994), in that I was selecting two sub-groups from

within 820 participants and sampling these sub-groups. On the one hand 75 of one sub-group were

teachers who had had to undergo an initial pre-course of 18 months training including a period of

residence abroad. These were likely to have been teachers with no previous experience of

teaching English. They would come from two main groups:

primary school teachers, many of them concerned mainly about possible job loss;

former Russian teachers, many of them equally concerned with possible job loss and many

of them loaded with ambivalent attitudes to English as an unwelcome symptom of changes

imposed upon them by a westernising society.

The remainder of this sample were those who at a later stage in their retraining had voluntarily

opted to do a work-placement abroad. These teachers were likely to be among the most

intrinsically or integratively motivated of the whole cohort.

Although this selection seemed to detract from the probability-basis of the selection, I maintain

that this was nevertheless probability sampling in that not all those who undertook the initial pre-

course or the later work-placements did so only in Northern Ireland. Many others opted to do this

in England instead of or as well. As such, my target sample constituted only a selection and not


53

the entire group in these categories. Furthermore, the added pressure of having to undertake the

extra pre-course was likely to have predisposed many of the participants to a certain negativity

which in the overall balance would possibly offset the bias of positive affinities for Northern

Ireland felt by those who had participated in summer schools. Finally, there was within this

stratified grouping a sort of self-regulation in that the two sub-groups were likely to indicate

opposite patterns of relative weightings for motivation types.

Nevertheless, the positive experiences associated with two-week residentials or three-week work

placements in Northern Ireland might be in danger of colouring responses given to the course

organiser who, at this later stage, was also the researcher! I decided it was necessary to check for

this potential skewing of results in monitoring the percentage of responses from former summer

school participants when weighing up final research outcomes. ( See Chapters 4 and 5.)

The next mailshot of 100 questionnaires was posted in Germany, while undertaking interviews,

and was a systematic probability sample. I posted a questionnaire, with self-addressed reply

envelope, to every tenth person on an alphabetical list of participants which I had received from

the retraining course director in Potsdam. If the tenth participant had already been targeted in the

stratified sample mentioned above, the next person alphabetically on the list was chosen.

Despite all efforts to ensure validity in terms of appropriate sampling, there is inevitably the

danger that respondents may tend to be either those who are the most positively disposed towards

the programme or those who have a particularly strong “gripe” to express. This is a factor that all

researchers must reckon with and there seemed little that could be done to obviate this potential

difficulty.


54

The same objection could be levelled at the selection of interviewees. Of the 20 respondents who

had replied to me by the time I was about to leave for Germany, ten of these indicated a

willingness to take part in interviews. It could be argued that these respondents were either among

the most positively or (less likely) among the most negatively pre-disposed. As it transpired I had

to make a selection from within these 10 anyway, on the basis of “convenience sampling” (Cohen

and Manion: 1994), i.e. there were two respondents who could not be interviewed for logistical

reasons. I made this final selection as a “purposive sampling” (ibid), that is, I analysed

questionnaire responses and targeted for interview those who seemed to constitute a representative

sub-sample of the range of motivational mixtures which were reflected in all the returns to date.

As a result, interviews yielded an appropriately wide range of responses. Although current levels

of intrinsic motivation were high to very-high in all interviewees, not all had undertaken the course

for the same reasons; they also had differing views of the programme in retrospect (two of then

would not recommend it to a friend; others would heartily recommend it); and motivating factors

during the actional phases significantly differed from individual to individual according to their

circumstances.


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4. Research Results

In this chapter I will survey the results yielded by the postal questionnaire and by interviews.

Firstly we will look at number and the profile of respondents, then we will explore the most salient

features of responses and establish patterns of correlation.

Responses to questionnaires will be grouped under four sections:

profile of respondents

responses dealing with pre-Actional or initial motivation

responses dealing with Actional motivation during involvement

responses dealing with post-Actional motivation - attitudes and behaviour following

completion of the retraining programme.

Some conclusions will be signposted in doing so but a more thorough assessment of conclusions

will be presented in Chapter 5


56

4. 1 Number of Responses and Profile of Respondents

Fifty of the two hundred teachers targeted by postal questionnaire returned responses.

Questions 1 – 6 on the questionnaire sought to establish a profile of these respondents.

4. 1 i Age of respondents

This question was designed to group respondents broadly into categories

25-35 36-45 46-55 56-65

This response gave information about the participant’s current age and therefore only a broad

indication of their age group at the time of undertaking the Sonderprogramm. This was deemed

sufficient to give a general idea of whether participants were older or younger at the time of

retraining and to allow for investigation as to whether this was a significant variable relating to

motivational attitudes and behaviour.

Results were as follows:

4. 1. ii Gender of respondents

22 respondents ticked the 46 – 55 option



46 respondents were female

4 respondents were male


57

4. 1. iii Family Circumstances

The response-options for this question allowed for a broad but not a detailed profiling of family

circumstances.

Respondents were asked to tick one of four options:

Single without children Married/Long-term partner without children

Single with children Married/Long-term partner with children

The key point for the purposes of interpreting results was that family commitments were likely to

have been a significant factor in participants’ perceptions of load while undertaking the

Sonderprogramm. As this factor was targeted explicitly in another question (Question 14) it was

deemed sufficient at this point in the questionnaire to establish a broad picture of participants’

circumstances. As was anticipated, most of the respondents were female and although it could not

be assumed that responsibilities for children rested largely with these women it was felt to be a

reasonable assumption that for the majority, family commitments would have meant an extra

complication and source of pressure while undertaking the retraining programme. On the other

hand I felt it would have made the questionnaire too unwieldy to have gone into detail about ages

of children during the programme involvement; whether there was significant domestic support

from the spouse; and whether family circumstances had changed since involvement in the

programme. It would be sufficient to establish in general (later in Question 14) whether family

commitments were a source of pressure while studying.

Interestingly all four male respondents indicated that family commitments were a significant

source of pressure for them during course involvement.


58

The profile of family circumstances which emerged was as follows. (In summarising results, the

word “married” is used to indicate both traditional marital status and long-term partnership.)

4. 1. iv Successful Completion Rate and Dates of Involvement in the

Programme

Question 4 asked for the starting date and Question 5 for the finishing date of involvement in the

retraining programme. Several factors were important here for possible correlations with

motivational dynamics investigated by other questions. Firstly, as the programme usually spanned

three calendar years from start to finish, it was significant if a substantially longer period were

involved in any individual case. This could indicate significant complications in circumstances or

unusual difficulty in completing the course. Both these factors may have significant bearing on

individuals’ perceptions and motivation. In particular it would be interesting to contrast

motivational dynamics among a group of participants who had not successfully completed the

programme with the rest who had.

Of the 50 respondents, all but three indicated a completion date that was within the expected three

calendar years. One respondent indicated that she had not completed the programme. Two

39 respondents were married with children

5 respondents were married with no children

5 respondents were single with children

1 respondent was single with no children


59

respondents left the completion date blank but did not tick the accompanying “No” box to indicate

not having successfully completed the programme.

All three respondents who had not finished the course nonetheless indicated in other responses that

they felt it had been the right decision to undertake the retraining and remained generally positive

about their professional use of English and their ongoing development of expertise.

Starting dates for all respondents were as follows.

The responses therefore seemed to reflect the main years of uptake in the programme and were

skewed significantly neither to the start of the programme nor its later years.

4. 1. v Previous Teacher Qualifications of those Involved in the Programme

Question 6 asked for an indication of participants’ teaching qualifications prior to starting the

retraining programme. Under the GDR initial teacher training system, students could leave school

at age 16 and undertake two years teacher training at an institute which qualified them to teach

junior classes only (LUK = Lehrer unterer Klassen). Other students stayed in school until age 18

1 respondent started the programme in 1994

25 respondents started the programme in 1995




47 indicated successful completion of the programme

3 respondents did not indicate successful completion of the

programme

5 respondents were married with no children

1 respondent was single with no children


60

or 19, reached the equivalent of A Level qualification and proceeded to a College or University to

gain a teaching Diploma. (See Appendix 6: 496 – 546 for a discussion of this.)

Generally, those who indicated “LUK” in the response-options were primary school teachers,

while those who indicated “Diplom” had been working in secondary or further education. For

some subjects, such as PE in secondary schools, it was not necessary to have either of these

formal qualifications. Certification based on years’ experience and competence was sufficient.

Respondents had the option of ticking “Other” to reflect this status, either with or without “college

leaving certificate”.

Again it was felt that it would unduly complicate the questionnaire to go into more detail about

previous background information at this stage. The key questions were to be related to motivation

and respondents would have the chance to outline their reasons for retraining in other parts of the

questionnaire.

The broad picture that emerged from responses was as follows.

It was anticipated that there would be a high correlation of responses indicating Diploma

qualification and those for Question 9 which indicated “Previous specialism not needed” as a

major motivation for undertaking retraining. Many of these would have been teachers of Russian

faced with the prospect of a drastically reduced teaching timetable and possible redundancy.

3 respondents had college education but neither LUK nor

Diploma level qualification

14 respondents had LUK status before retraining

33 respondents had Diploma status before retraining


61

(Interview discussions would reveal that other subjects also such as science and sport were

adversely affected by the restructuring of schools and their curricula which took place following

the “Wende”. See Appendix 6: 780 -836.)

Similarly, in view of the falling birth rate and the prospect of widespread school closures as

discussed in Chapter 1, a correlation would be expected between responses indicating LUK status

and the response “Fear of unemployment” as a significant motivation for engaging in the

retraining. These correlations are explored later under “Initial (Pre-Actional) Motivations”.

4. 1. vi Summary Profile of Respondents

The above results show that the respondents in this survey were predominantly (92%) female,

married with children, and aged between 30 and 50 at the time of undertaking the retraining. Over

60% of them had a teaching qualification in a subject other than English. 94% of respondents had

been successful in completing the retraining programme within three years of starting it. 14 out of

the 50 respondents had been to N Ireland.

The extent to which this sample can be taken as representative of the entire cohort of 820 teachers

will be assessed in Chapter 5 on “Conclusions.”

The high completion rate reflects the success of the programme overall. When we turn now to

look now at patterns of motivation we will be in a position to address the question posed in

Chapter 1, “Success at what price?” We now explore motivational complexities within the group.

Did the retraining programme yield a cohort of qualified teachers who were not only motivated


62

enough to gain a new teaching qualification but who would be enthusiastic about English,

committed to continuing to improve their competence in the and to undertaking the responsibility

of teaching it as much as possible?


63

4. 2 Initial (Pre-Actional) Motivations

Question 9 addressed the crucial area of initial motivation for undertaking the retraining

programme in English. Respondents could tick any combination of seven given options. A five-

point scale was used to assess relative weightings:

1 = Main reason(s)

2 = Very important

3 = Played a role

4 = Of limited importance

5 = Not important/not relevant

The response-options were designed to reflect motivations of a variety of types, intrinsic,

instrumental (which I take to mean the equivalent of extrinsic but not inclusive of integrative

motivation), social-cognitive and integrative (as traditionally understood to mean the desire to

become positively involved with English speakers and their culture).

Own Interest (Response-option 1 in Table 3 below)

Previous subject specialism no longer/less in demand (No 2)

Pressure from school management/authorities (No 3)

Previous successes in learning languages (No 4)

Hope of promotion opportunities (No 5)

Desire to have more contact with English speaking countries/people (No 6)

Fear of unemployment/reduced contractual hours (No 7)

Using spreadsheet calculations to total these responses and allocating a superior graph positions to

responses with higher importance weightings the following results emerged.


64

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Response Options

Initial Motivations

Table 3. Graph showing relative priority weightings given to types of initial motivation. Response-Options: 1= Personal Interest. 2 = Previous subject specialism no longer/less in

demand. 3 = Pressure from school management/authorities. 4 = Previous successes in learning

languages. 5 = Hope of promotion opportunities. 6 = Desire to have more contact with English

speaking countries/people. 7 = Fear of unemployment/reduced contractual hours.

From Table 3 it is apparent that the chief motivation in the group of respondents was the first item,

viz “Personal interest.” This was followed by response number 2 “Previous subject specialism no

longer/less in demand.” In third and fourth place, with almost equal weightings, were “Desire to

have more contact with English speaking countries/people” and “Fear of unemployment / reduced

contractual hours.”

Significantly less important overall were response-option number 5 “ Hope of promotion

opportunities” and response-option number 3 “Pressure from school management/ authorities.”

Only four respondents gave option 5 a high importance weighting, and six respondents gave option

3 a high ranking.

Seen as moderately significant in influencing participants’ motivation to undertake the retraining

course was option 4, “Earlier successes in learning languages.”


65

In general, therefore, there was evidence of high levels of purely intrinsic motivation throughout

the sample, that is, interest in learning and using English for its own inherent satisfaction. The

average response for the whole group was 2.083. The average level of intrinsic motivation was a

high 1.44 among LUK or lesser qualified teachers. For Diploma-qualified teachers the average

rank order weighting was 2.44. This correlates with the finding that instrumental motivation levels

were slightly higher among those who had enjoyed a previous subject specialism, arguably

lessening the significance of intrinsic motivation within that group. Nevertheless, in both groups,

there was evidence of high levels of intrinsic motivation.

Among the 33 Diploma-qualified teachers the average weighting given to option 7 “Fear of

unemployment / reduced contractual hours” was 2.87. Among the other teachers with lower level

qualifications the response average for this option was a lower 3.35. The response “Previous

Specialism no longer/less in demand” attracted a high weighting of 2.03 from the Diploma group

and a significantly lower 4.29 from the rest of the sample. Both of these response-options reflect

instrumental or extrinsic motivation in that the external circumstances, viz either fear of

unemployment per se or shrinking demand for a previous specialism with or without perceived

threat of job loss or reduced income, are the main catalyst towards undertaking a course of action,

i.e. the English retraining programme. The two main sources of external motivation were seen as

not inextricably linked in the minds of the respondents: only 15 of the 31 Diploma qualified

respondents who indicated high importance for options 2 and/or 7 had high weightings for both.

One other LUK qualified teacher responded with high importance weighting for option 2 (subject

specialism not in demand) and option 7 (fear of unemployment).

3 where 1= most important in rank order and 5 = least important


66

We can suggest differentiation between types of external or instrumental motivation evidenced in

the findings based on Deci and Ryan’s model (1985) discussed in 2.4 above. On the one hand,

there were clearly high levels of external, negative pressure over which participants had little

control viz reduced demand for their specialism and threatened unemployment. Correlating with

this there was significantly less of a sense among participants of positively going after promotion

chances. But at the same time, there was relatively little evidence of feeling compelled (by school

authorities) to undertake this retraining against their will or better judgement (average response

4.24). Participation in the programme seems to have been voluntary in that sense. We are

confronted therefore with a variety of motivational mixtures which may include a range of

“introjected,” “identified,” and “integrated” types of extrinsic regulation as discussed in section 2.4

above. Participants in the programme have mostly accepted the external pressures and in various

ways harmonised them internally with their sense of self-preservation or, more positively, self-

development.

This is particularly evident whenever externally originated motivations are found alongside high

levels of intrinsic motivation. 29 respondents indicated that a main or the most important source of

motivation was externally imposed. Of these, 17 also indicated very high levels of intrinsic

motivation (responses with weightings of 1 or 2). A further nine respondents reported that

intrinsic motivation played a role in their initial motivation (weighting of 3). Among the 17

showing a high correlation, only 3 felt that the pressure exerted by schools management or

education authorities was an important factor influencing their decision.

What we have therefore is a complex picture of external pressures being translated internally into

self-imposed goal-values (introjected/identified regulation) OR matched by recognised


67

opportunities for pursuing personal interest in English and for self-development

(identified/integrated regulation).

The factor “Previous successes in learning languages” received an average response of only 3.25

among Diploma-qualified teachers compared with a slightly higher 3.05 among those with a

primary school teaching qualification or informal qualification. This was a motivating factor

across the whole group of respondents which did play some role but was not one of the main

influences at the initial stages of involvement. Significant will be the comparison between this

response in relation to initial motivation and that given for the “Actional” stage (4.3 below).

In 12 returned questionnaires there was a differential of two points or more between levels of

intrinsic motivation and levels of integrative motivation as defined as above. The fact that the

average response for the entire group of respondents was 2.08 when describing pure intrinsic

motivation (“Own interest”) and 2.86 for pure integrative motivation indicates a fairly high level

of correlation overall within the group. But the fact that in nearly 25% of individual cases there

was a difference in importance of two points of more shows that these factors can and should be

treated separately if we are looking at personal complexities in motivational dynamics - contrary

to Gardner’s revised model of integrative motivation in 2.3 above.

Age did not seem to be a very significant variable in determining intrinsic motivation levels. The

average response from among the 46 – 55 age group was 2.04 whereas among the younger

respondents it was 2.11.

There are of course other correlations which could be drawn using data given in response to

Question 9. For the purposes of this study it is enough to


68

establish the main pattern of initial motivational types;

demonstrate the range of initial motivations within a sample of 50 respondents and within

individuals;

demonstrate that a single traditional construct of motivation is not adequate to capture the

complexities of motivational mixtures at any one stage.

We now proceed to look at how the picture is further complicated by the temporal aspect - that is,

how motivational mixes can change over time under pressure of circumstances and/or stimulation

of new opportunities.


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4. 3 Motivations During Participation (Actional Phase)

Various items in the questionnaire focused on participants’ experiences during their participation

in the Sonderprogramm. Results based on response to these questions are summarised in this

section.

It should be noted that to reduce the risk of respondents’ detecting groupings within certain

questions, which might lead to an increased tendency to give the expected “correct” answers,

certain questions were jumbled up to disguise the normal order that logic might otherwise have

dictated. Both in this section, therefore, and more so in 4.4 below, results will be presented in a

logical sequence which does not necessarily reflect the numerical sequence of the questions as

given in the questionnaire.

Question 14 (“Did you find the course of study…?”) invited respondents to tick a selection from

among the following as appropriate:

Interesting (mostly)

Very stimulating

Difficult and problematic - as regards level

Difficult because of the double load – school and study

A heavy load due to family circumstances

Relatively unproblematic/easy to manage

A welcome intellectual/professional challenge


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Results were as follows (out of 50 returns)

From these returns it is clear that the course was a demanding one for working teachers, many of

them with family commitments as well. The pressure of these combined demands, which was

recorded in the majority of questionnaires, was brought out very clearly in each interviews. See

e.g. Appendix 6: 691-710; 769 – 771.

However, the fact that 41 respondents found the course interesting or stimulating seems to

correlate with the high levels of intrinsic interest captured by Question 9 regarding initial

motivation.

When we analyse correlations in individual responses, however, it is worth noting that in eight

cases where respondents had indicated moderate to high levels of intrinsic interest at the pre-

actional phase (responses with weightings of 1, 2 or 3), this intrinsic interest was apparently not

present during the actional phase. Nonetheless, five of these respondents also indicated that the

1 respondent found the course of study relatively

unproblematic and easy to manage

42 respondents found the course difficult because of

pressures of work and/or family commitments

31 respondents found the course a welcome

intellectual/professional challenge

41 respondents found the course either interesting or very

stimulating

4 respondents found the course neither interesting,

stimulating nor a welcome challenge but only a difficult

burden


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course was for them a “welcome intellectual/professional challenge.” One other respondent

indicated intrinsic interest neither as an initial motivation nor as an overall assessment of her

experiences during the course of study.

Question 18 sought to establish which aspects of the programme engendered and/or sustained

most intrinsic interest overall. Respondents were asked to assign a value to each of five course

components to reflect interest levels: 1 = extremely interesting and 5 = not at all interesting. The

following graph shows the results.

1 2 3 4 5

Course Components

Actional Motivations

Table 4. Graph showing relative weightings given to types of actional motivation. Course Components: 1= Language tuition. 2 = Methodology. 3 = Cultural studies. 4 = Literature.

5 = Stay/Course abroad.

The course or other period of residence abroad was clearly the single most stimulating aspect of

the programme, with language tuition and cultural studies coming second and third. The average

response about a course or stay abroad was 1.32 for the whole sample. (The response from the

sub-group of those who had been in N Ireland was 1.5)


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Question 17 asked participants which sources of motivation they drew upon to sustain effort of

involvement under pressure. (“What most motivated you to continue the course of study whenever

it was sometimes difficult or burdensome for you?”) They were invited to choose any number of

options and allocate weighting according to importance. Options were

Personal Interest (Response-option 1 in Table 3 below)

Encouragement of friends or family (option 2)

Previous successes in learning languages (option 3)

Hope of promotion opportunities (option 4)

Stay in an English-speaking country (option 5)

Fear of unemployment/reduced contractual hours (option 6 )

Responses were asked for on a five-point scale where 1= “main influence” and 5 = “not

important/not relevant.” The following graph shows the relative importance attached by

respondents to the various sources of motivation.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Response Options

Motivation under Pressure

Table 5. Graph showing relative weightings given to types of motivation under pressure Option 1= Own Interest. 2 = Encouragement of friends and family. 3 = Earlier successes. 4 = Stay

in an English speaking country. 5 = Hope of promotion opportunities. 6 = Fear of

unemployment/reduced contractual hours.


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Correlating comparable responses from Questions 9 (pre-actional motivation) and 17 (actional

motivation) we can establish the following pattern of relative weightings4.

Motivation Type Pre-Actional Actional

Personal Interest. 104 81

(Encouragement of friends and family) (143)

(Previous subject specialism no longer/less in demand) (139)

(Pressure from school management/authorities) (212)

Earlier (language learning) successes 159 178

Hope of promotion opportunities 203 212

Stay in an English speaking country 143 135

Fear of unemployment/reduced contractual hours. 148 175

Table 6. Comparison of weightings (inverse) given to sources of motivation during pre-

actional and actional phases.

The pattern that emerges is that among the factors that can be compared, intrinsic interest remains

the single greatest source of motivation for participants, becoming even more significant as

involvement in the course developed. An integrative motivation remains important showing a

slight increase in weighting after the experience of a stay in a target language country. Extrinsic or

instrumental motivation on the other hand has reduced in significance both as positive “external

regulation” (hope of promotion chances) and negative “external regulation” (fears about job).

Resultative motivation (deriving motivation from the experience of success) also plays less of an

important role than at the beginning of the programme. The social aspect of the learning process

on the other hand plays a fairly significant role in the actional phase ranking third in importance.

An interesting correlation emerges when we take another look at those respondents whose data

seemed to suggest a waning of intrinsic motivation after starting the course. In each of the eight

cases, respondents indicated that under pressure they drew on high levels of personal interest to

sustain their commitment. This apparently contradictory result will be discussed in Chapter 5,

Conclusions.

4 The most important sources of motivations were allocated rank numbers of 1 and 2 whereas the least important were

recorded in scores of 4 and 5 on a five-point scale. The lower the aggregate therefore the more significant the

importance weighting.


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In general we may suggest that the combination of demanding pressure and instrumental

motivations did nothing to undermine personal, intrinsic motivation during involvement in the

course of study. In fact the most significant rise in any sort of motivation during course

involvement was in the area of personal interest.

We can now proceed to see whether in the post-actional phase this positive attitude was sustained

and continued to produce motivated behaviour after participants’ completion of the course.


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4. 4 Motivations After Course Completion (post-Actional Phase)

How did participants view their involvement in the course in retrospect? Did any negative

attitudes build up through the sense of external imposition or through the toll which was exacted

by the pressures of sustained involvement? How are participants’ attitudes reflected in current

behaviour as regards their use of English and their commitment to improving their own

competence? These are the questions addressed in this section by looking at results from

Questions 7-8 (correlated with Question 10 if applicable), Questions 11 – 13 and 15 –16. Again

these results are presented in logical order rather than numerical sequence.

Question 13 asked respondents to indicate whether they felt that undertaking the programme had

been

The right decision overall

A decision made under pressure but regretted now

Not yet in a position to judge

A decision made under pressure but not regretted now

A very positive decision as regards their career

Something of relatively little consequence

Results were as follows.

43 respondents felt that the decision to be involved was the “right

decision overall”

14 respondents said their involvement was “very positive as regards

their career”

7 respondents acknowledged they had made the decision under

pressure but did not regret it

50 respondents (=100%) chose one or more of the above positive

responses


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This seemed to suggest that whatever difficulties had been encountered in the course of the

programme, it all seemed worthwhile now that the demands had been met and various instrumental

rewards were in place. However that in itself did not necessarily mean that participants retained

high levels of motivation regarding their development and use of English.

Questions 7 and 8 established the rise in the amount of English taught by respondents now

compared to their starting point at the beginning of the training. Broad percentage categories

were used to allow respondents to give an estimate of increase or decrease in levels of English

they taught without seeking to be too precise, as this may have made the questionnaire more

unmanageable. An estimated overall average, using mid-points from the ranges given, reflects an

increase in English teaching by participants of around 30 %.

Where there was a decrease in the amount of English taught by a respondent, reasons were sought

in Question 10. This applied in only three returns. In two of these cases this decreased

commitment was due to factors outside the control of the respondent viz redeployment and falling

demand among pupils.

Question 11 therefore asked if respondents would like to teach more English; Question 12 if they

would like to (formally) study more English. Responses showed the following

23 said they would like to teach more English

3 respondents said the question about teaching more English was

not applicable: they already taught 100% English

18 said they would like to study more English

13 respondents said they would like neither to teach nor study more

English


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Analysing these results it is important to correlate individual responses to the question about the

desire to teach more English with the actual amounts of English taught by those respondents. Of

the 24 respondents who replied they did not want to teach more English, 18 of them already

taught amounts of English indicated by the 50 – 70 % bracket or 70 – 100%. The six other

respondents who do not wish to teach more English are teaching a low average of around 20%

English in their timetables. One of these respondents indicated a desire however to study more

English. This leaves five respondents who arguably show some residual negative attitude to

English learning and use: they neither teach much English, nor do they wish to teach more or

pursue further studies.

Question 16 asked respondents if they had made any effort after finishing their formal English

studies to continue to improve their competence. 100% of candidates said they had made an

effort and/or would have liked to do more if time had permitted. Question 15 probed into

strategies most currently used for improving their competence in English. Respondents were again

asked to allocated importance weightings (using a scale of 1 = main strategy to 5 = not

important/irrelevant). The following graph shows that using Radio/TV/Films/Reading was the

most commonly used strategy for effecting improvement with holidaying abroad playing a

significant role in some cases.


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1 2 3 4 5

Reponse Options

Strategies for Continued

Linguistic Improvement

Table 6. Graph showing relative weightings given to current strategies for improving English Strategy 1= TV/Radio/Films/Reading. 2 = Further formal study. 3 = Speaking or writing to native

speakers. 4 = Spending holidays in an English speaking country. 5 = Relying on lesson preparation

to improve own English.

Correlating these returns with those from the five respondents with a negatively motivated profile

as discussed above, it is interesting to note that one of the five respondents did not indicate any

improvement strategies, whereas the others indicated that they attached roughly an average

weighting to their improvement strategies comparable to the rest of the sample.

The general picture that emerges is that 90% of the sample show evidence of positive to very

positive attitudes towards ongoing development of competence in English and/or use of it

professionally. The five most negative returns overall in respect of current attitudes and behaviour

do not correlate significantly with returns from those who did not complete the course, as might

perhaps have been expected. Only in one of the three returns from those who did not indicate

course completion was there evidence of residual negativity: the respondent did not indicate that

the course had been interesting or stimulating, only difficult, and expressed no desire to teach or

to study more English.


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5. Conclusions

In this chapter I shall summarise and further interpret the main results emerging in Chapter 4. The

conclusions drawn will refer to the specific research questions given in 1.4 above, but an overall

evaluation of all the research results will also point to findings beyond the originally anticipated

outcomes. The issues raised will point to the need for further research into motivation using

similar groups, especially in view of the limitations of this research, which will be discussed in the

last section of this chapter.


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5. 1. Answers to Specific Research Questions

5. 1. i Range and relative importance of initial motivation types.

The First specific question in 1.4.i above was as follows:

Questionnaire returns and interviews showed that there were high levels of initial

motivation that had its source in external circumstances e.g. threatened job losses or

disappearance of a previous specialism from the curriculum. An interesting result was that

the fear of reduced hours or unemployment was an even more significant factor among the

Diploma-qualified (specialist) teachers than among the predominantly primary, LUK-

qualified teachers, despite imminent threats of school closures in the primary sector.

These two factors however were also not inextricably linked in the minds of the

respondents: many of those who had indicated high importance weighting for “Previous

subject specialism no longer/less in demand” did not link this with a high importance

weighting for “fear of unemployment/reduced hours,” though a significant number did (15

respondents out of 31 Diploma qualified respondents who scored either one or both of

these options highly.)

Nevertheless, these sources of motivation were second and fourth in importance out of

seven options and played a major role in the decision by respondents to undertake the

Sonderprogramm. (See Appendix 6, e.g. 462 – 476.) We may call these sources of

motivation extrinsic, in that external factors, over which respondents had little or no

control, were perceived as the stimulus towards a course of action (the Sonderprogramm)

How wide is the range of motivation types that can be charted in a sample

of the target cohort of learners of English at the pre-actional phase i.e.

before undertaking the retraining? What are the relative importance-

weightings of these motivations as perceived by respondents?


81

as a coping response to changing circumstances. Using Gardner’s term, we may equally

refer to this type of motivation as instrumental.

Both of these instrumental motivations are on the whole negative, in that they carried with

them the threat of loss of one sort or another. By contrast, the positive option of perceiving

retraining as a means of enhancing career prospects was the second lowest option chosen

by the sample as a whole. But there was little evidence that respondents felt compelled to

undertake this programme against their will. Few respondents indicated by questionnaire

that they felt compelled, at least by human agencies, to undertake this programme of study.

A strong sense of volition comes out in the interviews as well. (See Appendix 6: 431-436;

449 – 460; 800 -824; 1260 – 1263.)

This is reflected in the very high levels of intrinsic motivation evidenced by the

respondents both in questionnaire returns and in interviews. “Personal Interest” was clearly

the single most significant factor in influencing the participants to undertake the course of

study. This was seen as a more widely-based interest than the integrative motivation

which Gardner and others have traditionally seen as paramount. Although the “Desire to

have more contact with English speaking countries/people” was the second highest source

of motivation within the sample group, it was significantly lower in overall weighting

attached to it by respondents.

The pattern that emerges from questionnaires and interviews is that the sample was

motivated to undertake retraining in English out of a mixture of motivations: intrinsic,

integrative, instrumental. A number indicated that they also attached some importance to

resultative motivation. Two of the interviewees confirmed this in discussions. They had


82

indicated a “3” weighting for this option in their questionnaire returns. However, the

interviews show that they made no precise distinction mentally between an enjoyment of

English in their previous experiences and their success in learning English or other

languages. To what extent these factors (interest and success) were inter-dependent

remained unexplored in either questionnaire or interview. (See Appendix 6: 729 – 746; 790

– 812; 1018 – 1044.)

The most striking pattern that emerges is that extrinsic motivations appear to have been

internalised by the majority of the sample - possibly because external pressures were able

to be linked with high levels of intrinsic motivation in most cases. This finding is

suggested in questionnaire returns by the correlation between high levels of negative

instrumental motivation on the one hand and intrinsic interest on the other. On the whole

therefore we seem to be faced with what Deci and Ryan (1985) describe as “identified

regulation” or even “integrated regulation” rather than “introjected regulation.” This

synthesising of external and intrinsically based interests emerges also in the interviews.

Four out of five interviewees, having outlined the external changes that led to their

decision to undertake the Sonderprogramm, proceeded to make it clear that this

development was experienced by them as something acceptable (“It can’t do any harm”

Appendix 6: 26) or a very welcome opportunity (“I grabbed at it right away”… “I

volunteered because I had always been interested in English.” Appendix 6: 433 and 812).

How external or instrumental motivations are fused with intrinsic ones is seen in an

interviewee’s statements in lines 431-434 and 478 – 482. The same interviewee describes

her sense of volition and intrinsic motivation with equal conviction alongside a clearly

instrumental, strategic motivation arising out of circumstances forced upon her. It is


83

arguably only the interviewer’s questions or suggested questionnaire responses which lead

to dissection of aspects of motivation that in the mind and experience of the respondent

had become seamlessly fused. This begs the question if it is always useful or valid to

undertake such dissection by analysing motivation from the different angles offered by

varying traditional constructs of motivation. Evidence of such fusion certainly underlines

the need in research to use aspects of a variety of motivational constructs. Otherwise we

are in danger of focussing unduly on one type of motivation within an individual - a

molecule which may only be part of a much more complex compound. This is the multi-

faceted approach which we saw was advocated by Oxford and Shearin (1996).

5.1. ii Pressure on Intrinsic Motivation During Actional Phase.

The next specific question in 1.4.ii above was as follows:

The Sonderprogramm for retraining teachers of English in Brandenburg was a massive, well-

coordinated initiative by the State’s education ministry. According to Potsdam University’s

Abschlussbericht (“Final Report”) of July 2000 the programme was a success from the

institutional standpoint.

“Essentially the English degree course fulfilled the aims of the Sonderprogramm.

With the total number of examinees who passed their final examinations… a major

contribution has been made to vocational staff-development within the Brandenburg

Education Ministry.” 5

(The report goes on to mention a fall-out rate of only 13.8% which was below the expected failure

rate of 15% for the total Sonderprogramm including all subjects.)

5 Grundsätzlich hat der Studiengang Englisch die Ziele des Sonderprogramms erfüllt. Mit der gesamtzahl der

Prüflingen, die ihre Studienabschlussprüfung… bestanden haben, wurde ein wichtiger Beitrag zur

Personalentwicklung im Geschäftsbereich des Brandenburgischen Bildungsministeriums geleistet. (ibid)

Is there evidence that intrinsic motivation waned during the actional phase

under pressure of sustained commitment, particularly among those who had

higher ratings of extrinsic (instrumental) motivation?


84

My question was whether this institutional success was achieved at the cost of intrinsic motivation

deriving from enjoyment and interest. As we saw in 5.1.i above, questionnaires and interviews

indicated that intrinsic levels in the sample had been very high during the initial motivation phase.

But in many cases this was matched, or even outweighed, by various extrinsic motivations

originating in external pressures. Would this mixture lead to a waning of intrinsic interest when the

course proved demanding?

As discussed in Chapter 4, my research showed that on the contrary, during participation in the

Sonderprogramm, intrinsic interest levels remained high throughout the sample, despite the

formidable pressures and difficulties attached to the course over its nearly three years duration.

Most respondents indicated that having started the course of study they found it on the whole

either “interesting” or “very stimulating,” including those who initially had less intrinsic

motivation than average (for the sample).

However, there were nine respondents who had indicated high levels of intrinsic pre-actional

motivation and reported that the actional phase of the course in their experience was only

burdensome and difficult. Five of these respondents also indicated however that the course was “a

welcome intellectual/professional challenge.” Does this suggest that although the course may not

have proved as intrinsically interesting as the participants may have originally expected,

nevertheless there remained a high level of personal motivation which sustained them? It perhaps

could not be described as intrinsic motivation as normally understood - but in so far as it had little

to do with instrumental rewards of threats it is more akin to intrinsic motivation than extrinsic.

The paradox of these findings - viz five respondents did not find the course generally interesting

but did welcome it as a “challenge” – again points to the need for careful use of terminology to


85

describe motivations. If we define intrinsic motivation too narrowly as deriving only from interest

and enjoyment we may ignore or undervalue the sort of motivation which five of these nine

participants found to be sustaining, namely the positive sense of engaging in a challenge. It also

shows perhaps an evolution of motivations within these individuals. What started out as interest

evolved into a voluntarily accepted struggle to face a challenge.

We find ourselves therefore in the area of socio-cognitive motivational psychology. And again we

are faced with the inevitable conclusion that no one simple construct can adequately capture the

range of motivations which may be present even within one individual and which may change over

time and under pressure of circumstances. We must also therefore be careful not to use

terminology too restrictively; a label associated in previous research papers with certain

categorisations may not do justice to the complexities of individual motivational mixtures.

5.1. iii Sources of Effective Motivation During Actional Phase.

The third specific question in 1.4.iii above was as follows:

This question focussed respondents particularly on the most pressurised times of their three

year involvement with the programme. Which sources of motivation were they most aware

of drawing upon at those times? Under the greatest pressure, participants would naturally

be forced to draw upon their most powerful sources of motivation and this would therefore

be a spotlight to reveal what motivations were most significant in their experience.

Again there was evidence that rather than intrinsic motivation waning, it rose during the

actional phase. Tables 5 and 6 in Chapter 4 show a significant rise in intrinsic motivation

What motivation types were most effective in sustaining commitment when

programme demands intensified (actional phase)?


86

and some rise in integrative motivation. At the same time, instrumental motivation seems

to play a reduced role at this actional stage.

What is particularly intriguing is that eight of the nine respondents who had not indicated

high levels of interest in their overall assessment of the course stated that “personal

interest” kept them going when they felt pressurised. The conclusion that can perhaps be

drawn from this is that what they mean here by personal interest is again something other

than the enjoyment normally indicated by terms like “intrinsic interest.” Five of these eight

had also indicated in response to Question 14 that they had found the course a “welcome

challenge.”

It seems therefore that the points made above about terminology and simplistic

categorisation are reaffirmed by this finding. Intrinsic motivation based on academic,

integrative or other types of interest and enjoyment has become fused with – or perhaps

has evolved into - a more fundamental type of motivation, to explore which we would need

the resources of additional socio-cognitive psychological constructs. In exploring

motivational types, we clearly must be prepared to draw upon a variety of models to

describe what emerges as a complex compound.

This is illustrated in an interview quotation (Appendix 6: 156 – 160), where the

interviewee seems to make no distinction between “personal interest” and instrumental

motivation.

Interviewer. No? When you were doing the course, what most motivated you -

your own interest in the thing or still this fear of unemployment?

Interviewee. Euh actually more my interest in it. You can always use English and

the better you are at it the better your chances are in the long run in the job market.


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On the one hand it could be argued that the interviewer used a leading question or that the

interviewee understood something different by the terminology (“interest”). On the other

hand we are perhaps faced again with an interesting deep-level fusion of very different

motivations in the mind and experience of the respondent, which only an exploration from

different angles would adequately reveal.

Another incidence of such overlap or fusion of motivations is found in Appendix 6: 907 -

918

Interviewer. Euhm.. when you felt like giving up, what so you think was

the main thing that kept you going? Your interest in English or your career

prospects?

Interviewee. Career. And also I said, this is no going to beat me.

Interviewer. You weren’t going to give in ?!

Interviewee. No.

Interviewer. Were you always like that?

Interviewee. I suppose I was. I don’t like to give up.

As well as instrumental motivation focussed on career necessities there is something

deeper at play - a more primal motivation which the questionnaire did not anticipate and

therefore could not capture. We find ourselves yet again moving from an

integrative/instrumental construct to a more elusive socio-cognitive one. The same type of

response was found in other interviewees. One participant who had reported that she had

“jumped at the chance” to teach English out of personal interest and equally that she had

felt it externally necessary to manoeuvre herself into the position she wanted by

undergoing retraining, stated that under severe pressure, her source of motivation was

neither of these: it was instead a more primal instinct not to be beaten. (Appendix 6: 647 –

664).


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Interviewer. No. And as the programme went on? Whenever it got tough,

did you regret it? Did you ever want to give up?

E. Well I didn’t. I said what I’ve started I’ll see through to the end. I’ll fight

and get through - even if sometimes I was fed up with it

Interviewer. Just for your own sake.

E. For me. Yes… and … euh.. at some stage or other I said, you’ll get through

this, you’ve set yourself a goal and you’ll do it. (pause) (laughs) and I was

proud of myself that I had managed it.

P. And I –

- Interviewer. Were you always like that? (sorry). Always like that.

Ambitious and determined.

E. Yes. Yes.

In answer to Question 17 in the questionnaire, this interviewee had indicated that it was

“personal interest” that had sustained her during particularly tough times. Either she

misunderstood the term used or personal interest had so become fused with her innate

socio-cognitive instincts that they merged for her as a new complex compound. The

danger for researchers is clear that in using traditional terminology we may lead research

subjects to make invalid distinctions by isolating one aspect of a complex mixture and

using it as the basis to describe the whole phenomenon.

5.1. iv Motivation in the Post-Actional Phase.

The fourth specific question in 1.4.iv above was as follows:

The majority of course participants completed the retraining programme. In that sense the

Sonderprogramm was an undoubted success. My research interest was to ascertain whether

Is there evidence that in the post-actional phase, a sample of participants

showed significant decline in motivation to improve or continue to use their

competence in English?


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this institutional success had been achieved at the cost of reduced individual motivation

due to a sense of pressure which ultimately had been foist upon participants through

circumstances outside their control, despite high levels of personal interest. Results

summarised in 5.1. iv and v above suggest that levels of inner commitment remained high

throughout the programme. This seemed to be reflected in the result that overall there was

a substantial increase in the level of English taught - which in many cases had already been

quite high among the sample. Of course, this positive result on its own was not enough to

prove ongoing motivation among the sample. It is perfectly conceivable that in many cases

there was coercion to teach English. On the other hand, a significant drop or plateauing in

levels of English taught would have perhaps pointed to a lack of motivation in this post-

actional phase.

However this positive result was matched by high responses to options which allowed

respondents to indicate that they would like to teach or study more English, either formally

or through personal study. All respondents indicated that they had either wanted to

improve their English more but were hindered through lack of time or that they had taken

some steps to improve their competence since completing the programme. Resources

suitable for independent study (radio, TV, films, reading) were given as the most often

used tools in this continued development. In second place was contact with native speakers

or their country. Even those candidates who had shown a waning of intrinsic enjoyment

during the course reported that since completion or (in one case) dropping out of the

course, they continued to use these methods to improve their mastery of the language.

However, five respondents are currently teaching little English and expressed the desire

neither to study or to teach more English. Of these five, all but two had indicated that they

found the course “(generally) interesting” and all indicate some desire to continue to


90

improve their level of English. These contradictory outcomes would perhaps indicate a

certain level of residual negativity but would need further exploration through qualitative

interviews to ascertain current levels and types of motivation in this 10% of the sample.

5.1. v Effectiveness of an Eclectic Approach to Researching Motivation.

The final specific research question in 1.4.v above was about research itself. Would an

eclectic approach to motivational constructs prove useful or confusing and misleading in

my research?

On the whole I found that it was not only useful but necessary to adopt a multi-faceted

approach to looking at the range and mixture of motivations within my sample. What

emerged from results summarised in the above sections is that we do need to draw on all

these constructs, and others, in order to adequately capture the complex patterns of

motivation within groups and individuals. Even then, as we saw when discussing

respondents assessment of the role of “personal interest,” we are in danger of missing vital

aspects of motivational compounds by focussing on too narrow a range. Terminology

itself may do this by using traditional categorisations to try to capture complex personal

mixtures arising not only out of overlap of motivations, but rather the fusion of these into

new motivations. Gardner and Tremblay comment on this pitfall - even though, as I have

argued in 2.3 above, Gardner himself can seem to be unhelpfully fixated on a narrow range

of aspects of motivation and terms used to describe them.

“There seems to be general agreement among the authors .. as well as ourselves , that

motivation plays a major role in second language learning. Disagreement arises, however,

when we try to capture the essence of the motivation construct. One of the problems is that

researchers often differ in the language they use to explain the same phenomenon. When

How effective was an eclectic research approach, drawing on a range of motivation

constructs, for gathering and analysing data?


91

working with latent constructs such as motivation, substantial effort needs to be directed

toward construct validation. This step cannot be bypassed if we want to explain the big

picture rather than remote and often redundant segments of motivation.”

(Gardner and Tremblay: 1994 in Dörnyei: 2001, p213)

This is true at any one point in time; it is certainly true if we undertake to trace evolving

motivations across time. We have seen how the questionnaire on its own was not enough

to capture motivational complexities and failed to allow for the fact that an individual who

started out with high levels of intrinsic enjoyment, matched by equally high levels of

instrumental motivation, may have found over time a new molecule joining itself to these

two, namely that of sheer doggedness in face of a challenge. This admixture would change

the motivational state considerably and leave us wondering how best to describe the new

compound.

This evolution of motivations over time can be detected to some extent through

questionnaires. We saw how for example respondents would indicate a drop in levels of

intrinsic interest yet indicate high levels of a sense of welcoming the challenge. It was

particularly useful however to have recourse to qualitative methods as well, through

interviewing, to be able to explore such complex connections and let them emerge in

interviewees’ own words. Open-ended questions in a questionnaire would also have gone

some way to avoiding too narrow definitions of motivations but may have resulted in

fewer returns. Open ended questionnaires would also have made it more difficult to trace

trends across a group of 50 respondents, as there would not have been the same quantity of

comparable data.

I believe that my research approach and instruments were adequate to show that there was a range

of motivations within a group and within individuals. I was able to trace patterns of evolution in


92

motivations on both levels across time and to answer specific questions to which I had given

priority, such as the effects of externally engendered pressure on intrinsic motivations. I detected a

phenomenon which I could best describe as a fusion of motivations in such a way as to make it

arguably unhelpful to try to isolate one or other aspects of the compound, just as it would be

unhelpful and invalid to try to describe water by separately describing molecules of oxygen and

hydrogen: the whole is bigger - and other - than the sum of the parts. This tendency towards a

fusion of motivations was detected in questionnaire returns. It was then triangulated and explored

more in interview when respondents themselves made connections between motivations intuitively

and even inadvertently.


93

5. 2. Limitations of the Study

There can be no doubt therefore that exploring motivational mixtures within individuals or groups

is every bit as complex as current researchers are saying. There is rightly an increasing emphasis

on adopting a multi-faceted approach both cross-sectionally and across time so as to allow for

interaction and evolution of motivations. My research has shown (I believe) that there is evidence

not only of evolution of distinct types of motivation within individuals but of fusion of these types

to create new compounds. These new compounds can be very complex indeed and this

phenomenon should make us all the more wary of using narrow constructs and their terminology

to try to describe them. This is of course not a slight challenge.

“The problem with parallel multiplicity is that it further complicates the motivation

field that has already been struggling with considerable challenges. Hardly any

research has been done to examine how people deal with multiple actions and goals,

how they prioritise between them and how hierarchies of superordinate and

subordinate goals are structured.” (Dörnyei: 2001)

There is therefore scope for further research into this phenomenon of blending motivational states.

My research falls within the recent development of thinking about motivation as multi-faceted and

changing. Inevitably not all aspects could be explored equally thoroughly and priorities had to be

set. I have indicated above that the issue of resultative motivation could have been explored more

thoroughly in both the questionnaire and the interviews. The whole aspect of social influences

(group dynamics, belonging, affirmation etc) was only touched on in the questionnaire and in the

interviews - but it is interesting that “the encouragement of friends and family” ranked third in

importance (out of six) when subjects were asked what had most motivated them to continue when

pressures mounted. Most importantly, the realm of socio-cognitive dynamics per se emerged as a

significant domain which the questionnaire had not fully anticipated and which was only

highlighted when paradoxical results showed the presence of other underlying factors at work.


94

Interviews helped to highlight these primal motivations which could have been explored in more

depth.

Out of 200 questionnaires, 50 were returned. It is debatable whether this constitutes a statistically

reliable sample of the 820 teachers who undertook the retraining scheme between the years of

1994 and 2000. However the sample of 50 respondents was in most respects typical of the cohort.

The age range and family circumstances as well as the male/female ratio are reflective of the

profile of the whole cohort according to the course organiser’s entry data. However, in my sample

there was an indication of only a 6% non-completion rate which is less than half the drop-out rate

reported in the Abschlussbericht by Potsdam University. It has already been acknowledged that

respondents’ willingness to reply may in itself be an indication of non-typical self-selection i.e.

those who either feel very positively or very negatively about the issues. The above-average

success rate of my sample may have skewed results somewhat towards more positive outcomes.

Another word about the sampling. 14 of the 50 respondents by questionnaire were participants

who had been to Northern Ireland to take part in summer schools or work placements organised by

myself. There was an increased danger among this group of candidates giving “sanitised” answers.

However checks confirm that these subjects gave no indication of skewed results on any of the key

questions. Averages were nearly identical to the overall group average. This applied in particular

to questions about the integrative aspects of motivation, which of course had been impacted by

stays in N Ireland. I was satisfied that there was no skewing of results by virtue of their having

been on these courses or placements.

Finally, while there is a longitudinal aspect to my study, it would of course have been more truly

longitudinal to have been able to monitor motivations at different phases as they were operating


95

rather than rely on retrospective reporting. I believe this piece of research shows that there is

scope for undertaking such longitudinal studies of motivation within similar large cohorts and in

particular to focus on how fusion of motivations produces different motivational compounds over

time.

In doing so we must surely use as broad a range of motivational constructs as we can synthesise in

order to do justice to the sheer complexities of individual motivations. Even within a sample of 50

questionnaires and 8 interviews, it was clear that no two individual patterns of mixtures of

motivation were the same. Ultimately, every individual’s psyche is as unique as their DNA.


96

An frühere Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer des Studiums

im Sonderprogramm (Englisch) zur Weiterqualifizierung brandenburgischer Lehrkräfte

Ballymena, 8.5.2003

Liebe Kollegen, liebe Kolleginnen,

Mein Name ist Bill Brodie. Ich bin Fachberater/Referent bei einer unserer Schulbehörden in Nordirland. Ich

schreibe gerade eine Dissertation über Faktoren, die das Erlernen von English als Fremdsprache

beeinflussen, und ich wende mich an Sie sowie andere frühere Teilnehmern/Innen, um Sie einzuladen, eine

Umfrage auszufüllen, die mir hilfreiche Daten zu diesem Thema liefern würde. Ich wäre Ihnen sehr

dankbar, wenn Sie die Zeit aufbringen könnten, an dieser Umfrage teilzunehmen. Ihre Addresse habe ich

seit Ihrer Teilnahme an einem Sprachkurs bzw Praktikum in Nordirland und ich hoffe, dass es Ihnen nichts

ausmacht, wenn ich Sie so kontaktiere.

Bei solchen Umfragen gibt es natürlich keine falschen oder richtigen Antworten. Es geht nur um Ihre

authentischen Einschätzungen. Sie können also beim Ausfüllen direkt und offen sein! Selbstverständlich

sichere ich Ihnen totale Anonymität zu. Auch wenn Sie weiteren Kontakt wünschen und bereit sind, diesen

Fragebogen zu unterzeichnen, garantiere ich, dass zu keiner Zeit individuelle Angaben identifiziert,

weitergegeben oder veröffentlicht werden.

Bitte beachten Sie: Auch wenn Sie das Sonderprogramm aus verschiedenen Gründen NICHT beendet oder

bestanden haben, sind Ihre Bermerkungen für diese Forschung wichtig und hilfreich.

Ich bedanke mich im Voraus für Ihre wertvolle Unterstützung.

Mit besten Wünschen

Bill Brodie

Appendix 1. Postal Survey Covering Letter (German)


97

Former Participants in the Special Training Programme (English)

for Teachers in Brandenburg

Ballymena, 8.5.2003

Dear Colleagues

My name is Bill Brodie. I’m an Adviser in one of the local education authorities in Northern Ireland. I am

in the process of writing a dissertation on factors influencing the learning of English as a foreign language

and I am contacting you among other former participants to invite you to fill in a questionnaire which

would provide me with helpful data on this theme. I’d be very grateful if you could find the time to take

part in this survey.

There are of course no right or wrong answer for such surveys. What matters is your evaluations. You can

be open and direct therefore in completing it! Total anonymity is of course guaranteed. Even if you are

willing for further contact and are prepared to sign this questionnaire, I guarantee that no individual’s return

will be identified, passed on or published.

Please note that even if you have not completed the Special Training Programme for various reasons, your

observations will be important and helpful for this research.

Let me thank you in advance for your valued support.

Best Wishes

Bill Brodie

Appendix 2. Postal Survey Covering Letter (English translation)


98

UMFRAGE zur früheren Teilnahme am Sonderprogramm im Fach Englisch für brandenburgische Lehrkräfte 1. Alter (Bitte ankreuzen) 25-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 2. Geschlecht Weiblich Männlich 3. Familienstand (als Sie das Studium unternommen haben) Alleinstehend ohne Kinder Alleinstehend mit Kindern Mit Ehe-/Lebenspartner ohne Kinder Mit Ehe-/Lebenspartner mit Kindern 4. Wann haben Sie das Weiterbildungsstudium im Fach Englisch begonnen?

(Jahr/Monat)

5. Haben Sie das Studium erfolgreich beendet?

Ja (Jahr/Monat)

Nein

6. Welche Lehrerqualifikation hatten Sie, als Sie das Studium anfingen?

LUK Diplom

Sonst. mit Hochschulabschluss Sonst. ohne Hochschulabschluss

7. Als Sie mit dem Sonderprogramm anfingen, wie hoch war ungefähr die Erteilung von Englisch-Unterricht in Ihrer Arbeit?

0 - 10% 10 - 30% 30 - 50% 50 -70 % 70 - 100%

Appendix 3 Postal Questionnaire (German)


99

8. Wie hoch ist jetzt die Erteilung von Englisch-Unterricht in Ihrer Arbeit?

0 - 10% 10 - 30% 30 - 50% 50 -70 % 70 - 100%

9. Aus welchen Gründen haben Sie das Weiterbildungsstudium im Fach Englisch auf sich genommen? (Bitte schätzen Sie die Faktoren nach Wichtigkeit ein. 1 = Hauptgrund/gründe; 2 = Sehr wichtig; 3 = Spielte eine Rolle; 4 = Nur von geringer Wichtigkeit; 5 = Nicht wichtig/nicht zutreffend.)

Eigenes Interesse Frühere Fachrichtung nicht mehr bzw. weniger verlangt

Druck vom Schulamt/Schulleitung Frühere Erfolge beim Sprachenlernen

Hoffnung auf Beförderungschancen

Wunsch, mehr Kontakt mit englischsprachigen Ländern/Leuten zu haben

Angst wegen Arbeitslosigkeit/reduzierter Arbeitsstunden

10. Wenn Sie jetzt weniger Englisch unterrichten als zu Beginn des Studiums, woran liegt das? Sollten Sie jetzt genau so viel oder mehr Englisch unterrichten, beantworten Sie diese Frage bitte nicht. (Bitte schätzen Sie die Gründe nach Wichtigkeit ein. 1 = Hauptgrund/Hauptgründe; 2 = Sehr wichtig; 3 = Spielt eine Rolle; 4 = Nur von geringer Wichtigkeit; 5 = Nicht wichtig/nicht zutreffend.)

Mangel an persönlichem Interesse?

Wenig Nachfrage unter Kindern bzw. sinkende Schülerzahl in ihrer Schule?

Mehr Gelegenheit als früher Ihr anderes Fach/andere Fächer zu unterrichten?

Kein oder wenig Selbstvertrauen, Englisch zu unterrichten?

Ich arbeite jetzt in einer anderen Schule.

Ich habe nicht genug Fortschritte gemacht beim Englischstudium.

Ich unterrichte überhaupt nicht mehr.

Ich glaube, andere Kollegen/Innen können es besser.

Ich mag die Sprache selbst nicht so sehr.

Organisatorische/Administrative Faktoren, die ich nicht beeinflussen kann.


100

11. Würden Sie gern mehr Englisch unterrichten? Ja Nein

12. Würden Sie in der Zukunft gern vertiefend Englisch studieren?

Ja Nein

13. War die Entscheidung, überhaupt das Weiterbildungsstudium aufzunehmen -

Alles in allem die richtige Entscheidung.

Eine Entscheidung, die Sie unter Druck getroffen haben, und jetzt bedauern.

Immer noch nicht einschätzbar.

Eine Entscheidung, die Sie unter Druck getroffen haben, aber nicht bedauern.

Eine sehr positive Entscheidung hinsichtlich Ihrer Karriere.

Etwas, was Ihnen jetzt relativ unbedeutend ist.

14. Fanden Sie das Studium – (Sie können mehrere Antworten ankreuzen.)

Interessant (zum grössten Teil)

Sehr stimulierend.

Schwer und problematisch – vom Niveau her

Schwierig wegen Doppelbelastung – Schule und Studium

Eine grosse Belastung wegen Familienbedingungen

Relativ unproblematisch/ leicht machbar

Eine willkommene intellektuelle/professionelle Herausforderung

15. Wie verbessern Sie gegenwärtig Ihr Englisch? (wenn überhaupt)

(Bitte schätzen Sie die Faktoren nach Wichtigkeit ein. 1 = Hauptmittel; 2 = Sehr wichtig; 3 = Spielt eine Rolle; 4 = Nur von geringer Wichtigkeit; 5 = Nicht wichtig/nicht zutreffend.) Radio/Fernsehen/Filme/Lesen? Ich absolviere ein weiteres Studium.

Mit Muttersprachlern reden oder an sie schreiben?

Ich verbringe Ferien im englischsprachigen Raum.

Ich verlasse mich auf meine Vorbereitung des eigenen Unterrichts, um meine eigenen Sprachkenntnisse aufzufrischen.


101

16. Nach dem Ende des Studiums, haben Sie –

- sich keine Mühe mehr gegeben, weitere Fortschritte in Englisch zu machen?

- sich gewünscht, mehr Fortschritte zu machen, aber es fehlte die Zeit?

- doch Einiges gemacht, um Ihre Englischkenntnisse zu perfektionieren?

17. Was motivierte Sie am meisten, mit dem Studium weiterzumachen, wenn es manchmal schwer oder belastend für Sie war? (Bitte schätzen Sie die Faktoren nach Wichtigkeit ein. 1 = Haupteinfluss; 2 = Sehr wichtig; 3 = Spielte eine Rolle; 4 = Nur von geringer Wichtigkeit; 5 = Nicht wichtig/nicht zutreffend.)

Eigenes Interesse Ermutigung von Freunden/Familienkreis

Frühere Erfolge Aufenthalt in einem englischsprachigen Land

Hoffnung auf Beförderungschancen


18. Welche Aspekte des Studiums fanden Sie am stimulierendsten? (Bitte schätzen Sie die Aspekte nach Niveau von Stimulation. 1 = Äusserst 2 = Sehr 3 = Einigermassen 4 = Nicht besonders 5 = Überhaupt nicht) Sprachunterricht Methodik Landeskunde Literatur

Aufenthalt/Sprachkurs im Ausland

Herzlichen Dank für Ihre Zeit und Ihre Bereitschaft, an dieser Umfrage teilzunehmen! Bill Brodie

Wenn Sie bereit sind, an einem Gespräch mit mir teilzunehmen, um auf die obigen Themen tiefer einzugehen, bitte schreiben Sie mir Ihre Kontaktdetails. Ich hoffe, mich mit einigen Teilnehmern/Innen zu treffen, und zwar zwischen dem 12. und 18. Juni. Ein Gespräch würde ungefähr 45 Minuten dauern und könnte entweder in Ihrer Heimatstadt oder an irgendeinem zentralen Ort stattfinden. Name (nur notwendig, wenn Sie zu einem Gespräch bereit wären; ansonsten fakultativ) Wohnort

Telefon


102

Em

ail

1. Age (please tick)

25-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 2. Gender Female Male 3. Family Circumstances Single without children Single with children Married/Partner without children Married/Partner with children 4.When did you start the course leading to Further Qualification in English ?

(Year/Month)

5. Have you successfully completed the course?

Yes. (Year/Month)

No

6. What teaching qualification did you have when you started the course of study?

L.U.K. ( Lower age qual.) Diploma

Other - with leaving cert Other - without leaving cert

7. When you began the Special Training Programme, how high approximately was the proportion of English teaching in your work

0 - 10% 10 - 30% 30 - 50% 50 -70 % 70-100

8. How high NOW is the proportion of English teaching in your work?

Appendix 4 Postal Questionnaire (English Translation)


103

0 - 10% 10 - 30% 30 - 50% 50 -70 % 70-100

9. What were your reasons for undertaking the Further Qualification course in English? (Please grade factors according to importance 1 = Main reason(s); 2 = Very important; 3 = Played a role; 4 = Of limited importance; 5 = Not important/not relevant.)

Personal interest Pressure from school management/authorities

Pevious subject specialism no longer/less in demand

Previous success in learning languages

Hope of promotion opportunities

Desire to have more contact with English speaking countries/people

Fear of unemployment/reduced contractual hours

10. If you now teach less English than you did at the start of the course of study, what is the reason? If you teach exactly as much English of more, don’t answer this question. (Please grade factors according to importance 1 = Main reason(s); 2 = Very important; 3 = Played a role; 4 = Of limited importance; 5 = Not important/irrelevant.)

Lack of personal interest.

Less demand among pupils OR falling pupil numbers in your school.

more opportunity than before to teach you other subject(s)

No or little self-confidence to teach English.

I now work in a differnent school.

I didn’t make enough progress in my English studies

I am not teaching any more.

I think that other colleagues can do it better.

I don’t like the subject itself so much.

Organisational/administrative factors which I can’t influence

11. Would you like to teach more English? Yes No

12. Would you like to study more English in the future?


104

Yes No

13. Was the decision to study English in the first place

Generally the right decision?

A decision you took under pressure but now regret?

Still not able to be evaluated?

A decision you took under pressure but do not regret?

A very positive decision as regards your career?

Something that is relatively insignificant for you?

14. Did you find the course of study (you can tick several)

Interesting (mostly)?

Very stimulating?

Hard and problematic - as regards level?

Difficult because of the double commitment – work and study?

A heavy burden due to family commitments?

Relatively unproblematic/easily managed?

A welcome intellectual and professional challenge?

15. How are you currently improving your English? (if at all)

(Please grade factors according to importance 1 = Main strategy; 2 = Very important; 3 = Plays a role; 4 = Only of limited importance; 5 = Not important/irrelevant.) Radio/TV/films/reading I’m doing a further course of study

Talking or writing to native speakers

I spend holidays in an English-speaking country

I rely on my own lesson preparation to keep my knowledge of the language fresh.

16. After the course of study, did you

- make no effort to make further progress in English?

- wish to make more progress but there was no time?

- do something to perfect your knowledge of English?


105

17. What most motivated you to carry on with the course of study whenever it was sometimes difficult or burdensome for you? (Please grade factors according to importance 1 = Main influence; 2 = Very important; 3 = Played a role; 4 = Only of limited importance; 5 = Not important/irrelevant.)

Personal interest Encouragement of friends/family circle

Previous successes Stay in an English speaking country

Hoffnung auf Beförderungsschancen


18. Which aspects of the course of study did you find most stimulating? (Please grade the aspects according to level of stimulation 1 = Extremely 2 = Very 3 = Somewhat 4 = Not especially 5 = Not at all)

Language tuition Methodology Culture Literature

Aufenthalt/Sprachkurs im Ausland

Many thanks for your time and willingness to take part in this survey

Bill Brodie

If you are willing to take part in an interview with me to go into these themes in more detail please give me your contact details. I hope to meet with some participants between the 12 and 18 of June. An interview would last approximately 45 minutes and could take place either in your home town or in another central venue. Name (only necessary if you wish to help further with this survey; otherwise optional) Address

Tel

Email


106

Appendix 5. Extracts from Interviews


107

Interview 1 1

2

Even in GDR times you could see already that the prospects for Chemistry teachers.. no.. no 3

longer existed. And at that stage my headmaster recommended to me to specialise in English, 4

to retrain. So I started doing refresher courses.. 5

6

Interviewer. Even before the Wende6? 7

8

Even before the Wende, because.. well, even in GDR times, at the end then... it was better to 9

take English than Russian. Russian and subjects like Chemistry were losing out… 10

11

Interviewer. But why chemistry? I’d have thought that would be a useful subject in any 12

school. 13

14

Euh no ...there were just too many hours for it in GDR schools. Even in year 8, four hours and 15

that was being reduced even in GDR times 16

17

Interviewer. So who persuaded you to do English? 18

19

At that point my headmaster said English was an up and coming prospect. We had no 20

qualified English teachers in school. 21

22

Interviewer. How did you react.. well.. you did it, but inwardly did you have difficulty 23

accepting the idea? 24

25

Mm From the start I just had one idea: this can’t do any harm. But I never really intended to 26

become an English teacher 27

28

Interviewer. ...No. 29

30

Because really I’m a scientist and that was always closer to my heart than languages. 31

32

Interviewer. Did you do a bit of English in school. 33

34

Yes. We had English. And Russian too. 35

36

Interviewer. Yes? 37

38

And, em, then came this offer of the Sonderprogramm.. afterwards..around 93 or so. 39

40

Yes? 41

42

Yes 43

44

Interviewer. And you applied, or did your headmaster...? 45

46

Mmm We got the materials sent to the school, and since I had made a start I went ahead. 47

6 The Political changes that followed the collapse of the Wall


108

48

Interviewer. ...You did it voluntarily? 49

50

Yes...because meanwhile I was teaching English and just - then just … started. 51

52

Interviewer. And do you still teach a bit of chemistry? 53

54

None at all. Only English. 55

56

Interviewer. Just English? 57

58

Yes. 59

60

Interviewer. At secondary level? 61

62

Primary school 63

64

Interviewer. When did you change school? 65

66

I was put in a primary school when the schools were divided up. That was 1990 when the new 67

school system was introduced.. 68

69

Interviewer. So that was.. I can imagine that was a bit of a shock! From secondary level to- 70

71

- mmm 72

73

Interviewer. -to primary school.. 74

75

Not so much. We could choose. SO we could tick whatever we wanted to do. I ticked both 76

school types. So basically it was – 77

78

Interviewer. -Yes 79

80

- all the same to me. 81

82

Interviewer. Uh huh. And when you started the Sonderprogramm, how did you imagine it? 83

Difficult… or… really demanding? 84

85

Difficult, oh yes. Certainly. A heavy load. 86

Interviewer. 87 Were you warned at the beginning that it would be strenuous. 88

89

It was hard to get information. The older students hardly said anything. The most important 90

thing we gleaned was that it was worth experiencing! That was all... And more than that we 91

didn’t. – 92

93

Interviewer. -Uh huh 94

95

- and we just had to experience it for ourselves. 96


109

97

Interviewer. And when the programme started..em.. was it even more of a shock than you 98

had... 99

100

Naw... 101

102

Interviewer. No ? 103

104

No. 105

106

Interviewer. It was ok? And do-able? 107

108

It was do-able. 109

110

Interviewer. But demanding? 111

112

Certainly demanding - but manageable. 113

114

Interviewer. How many hours did you have per week? 115

116

I had 16 teaching hours a week with a reduction of four. 117

118

Interviewer. And in your free time, then, outside seminar hours, how many hours per week... 119

how much time did you have to devote to it? 120

121

Lots. 122

123

Interviewer. Four, five hours? 124

125

Oh more!! 126

127

Interviewer. Mm? 128

129

Oh yeah.. the 10 hours per week they said you would need, you took all that and you needed 130

that – 131

132

Interviewer. - Yes? 133

134

- and more. Yes 135

136

Interviewer. For written work. 137

138

Written and oral. We had to learn things. 139

140

Interviewer. And the whole course took two and a half years Isn’t that right? 141

142

Euh no it was almost three years. 143

144

Interviewer. Nearly three? 145


110

146

Interviewer. And what was.. at what point was it the toughest (pause) At the start… or 147

before the exam? The final exams? 148

149

(pause) Don’t know. 150

151

Interviewer. Ah. Mmm Was there ever a time when you thought of giving up? 152

153

(pause) No. 154

155

Interviewer. No? When you were doing the course, what most motivated you - your own 156

interest in the thing or still this fear of unemployment? 157

158

Euh actually more my interest in it. You can always use English and the better you are at it 159

the better your chances are in the long run in the job market. 160

161

Interviewer. So your motivation was an inner thing? 162

163

It was. 164

165

Interviewer. Would you say that was the case among most of the students? Or not so much? 166

167

That’s difficult to say. 168

169

Interviewer. Did lots of people complain that they were having to do this thing at all. 170

171

I think it mostly seemed voluntary, so – 172

173

Interviewer. - For most of them 174

175

- for most of them. I don’t think it was the case that many of them allowed themselves to be 176

pressurised. I mean how could they? What could they do? Even the ones who had to give it up 177

were sad to give it up. 178

179

Interviewer. Why did they? 180

181

They couldn’t manage it. 182

183

Interviewer. Hmm 184

185

I mean performance wise. Couldn’t – 186

187

Interviewer. - Were there many in that category? 188

189

No very few. 190

191

Interviewer. Did you ever have to repeat anything yourself? 192

193

I was fortunate enough not to have to repeat anything ( laughs) 194


111

195

Interviewer. You were a good student? 196

197

Mmm .. well ...(laughs) 198

199

Interviewer. And then there was that time, your course in Colchester - 200

201

- Yes 202

203

Interviewer. - and in N Ireland? 204

205

Yes (pause) 206

207

Interviewer. A lot of people have said it made a big difference, it gave them a real boost and 208

changed their motivation. Was that so for you? Did it play a big role?.. 209

210

Euhm the courses in N Ireland were of course VERY motivating. Colchester less so 211

. 212

Interviewer. Oh... I’m glad to hear it (laughs) But what could have been done differently, 213

I’m interested? 214

215

Well, I think... there were several things we had bad luck with. First of all the weather. It was 216

really bad when we were in Colchester. . Secondly I chose a course that was right after the 217

end of school. It came right after the end of the school year. We were , you know, drained. I 218

definitely should’ve chosen a later course Would’ve been better. And then the length of it. 219

Three weeks is just too long. 220

221

Interviewer. Mm. Three weeks, yes. So you worked solidly for the three years? Did the 222

group develop its own sort of dynamics? And was... Did you get a lot of support from the 223

other group members? 224

225

Yes whenever it was possible we supported each other and helped. 226

227

Interviewer. Did that involved studying together? Or .. that – 228

229

- Not so much. Because we lived far apart. That was only really possible for those who lived 230

in the town. Euh… 231

232

(interview continues) 233

234

Interviewer. And the big question. Imagine you could turn the clock back, would you do it 235

again? 236

237

Definitely. 238

239

Interviewer. Yes? 240

241

Yes 242

243


112

Uh huh. A very positive answer. 244

245

Interviewer. And now you’re only teaching English? Do you enjoy it? – 246

247

-Yes. 248

249

Interviewer. - Or is it only a job? 250

251

No things have changed with time. 252

253

Interviewer. Uh huh. How come? 254

255

(inaudible) 256

257

Interviewer. Uh huh. 258

259

I think the confidence you developed in the programme. Because language is a big area and 260

you can feel insecure…euh. It’s bad. And through the retraining we got lots of .. a lot more 261

self confidence. 262

263

Interviewer. Great. By the way, I’ll have to try and get you more contacts in N Ireland. 264

265

Ohhh I should have been in touch but .. all the work. And.. I know.. I have lots of interest and 266

have all the phone numbers at home. I don’t know if the numbers are still the same. 267

268

Interviewer. Did you hear about our Comenius conference. 269

270

No we’re not in Comenius yet. 271

272

Interviewer. No it’s for new starts. (inaudible) 273

274

(inaudible) 275

276

Interviewer. Yes 277

278

Maybe it’s coming. 279

280

Interviewer. No it’s already past. Several Primary schools have got in touch and are taking 281

part. We’re at the stage of partnering the schools with schools in N Ireland. We do this 282

almost every year, a conference. 283

284

Yes, we’ve been looking really hard for a school partner in Great Britain but found nothing 285

yet. 286

287

Interviewer. I’ll try and do something about that. Thanks a lot for this interview. 288

289

Is that it? 290

291


113

Interviewer. No not quite. Just to go into this again. Mostly you only felt positive feelings 292

during this course. 293

294

Oh no, no. There were times when you felt drained and- 295

296

Interviewer. - but at those time you didn’t have the feeling that others were to blame for 297

that, it was your choice. Weren’t doing it under pressure - 298

299

- No. Nobody was to blame. What can anyone do if my brain can’t take things in (laughs) 300

- 301

Interviewer. -(laughs) It’s just I get the impression from the questionnaires that quite a few 302

felt under pressure and that if they had a really free choice they wouldn’t have done it. But 303

that wasn’t the case with you. 304

305

No 306

307

Interviewer. And my last question. What do you do - how do you keep up your English. Are 308

there English TV or radio programmes. 309

310

Unfortunately not any more. They have been cancelled. We used to have…satellite 311

312

Interviewer. - through satellite or what? 313

314

- through satellite but nothing now. There’s BBC news and advertising broadcasts. Nothing 315

more for us. Can’t get anything more now. (pause) I’ve subscribed to a magazine. It comes 316

with exercises and tape. Euhh not tape, CD 317

318

Interviewer. Oh really? Is that for adults or- 319

320

-yes. Only Adults. 321

322

Interviewer. - Could you use it for school or- 323

324

- Mmm. Not suitable for primary schools. It’s just for my own development and there are 325

tests very so often. But unfortunately you notice with time you forget more and more. It’s 326

absolutely essential to keep your language fresh. 327

328

Interviewer. And you don’t have any opportunity to holiday in an English speaking country. 329

330

Oh yes. We do that often…. 331

332

Interviewer. Final, final Question! Would you recommend the Sonderprogramm to others? 333

334

(pause) Everyone has to decide for themselves if they’d do it or not. It is VERY difficult - 335

336

Interviewer. - Would you discourage them? 337

338

- you need a lot of strength. No I wouldn’t discourage them. But I know how much strength 339

you need for it. It is really very difficult. 340


114

341

Interviewer. Thanks for this interview about your experiences. So it was almost 100 % a 342

positive experience for you. 343

344

A REALLY important life-experience. It has raised my self-confidence levels enormously. 345

What they did with me before the programme they couldn’t have done to me afterwards. 346

347

(Husband) I’ve noticed a change. If I compare the way my wife prepares for her lessons 348

now - compared with when she used to teach chemistry and maths. She spends hours 349

preparing worksheets Sits there for hours at the computer . and all the literature. 350

351

Interviewer. So you enjoy it. 352

353

Yes 354

355

(Husband) All the graft and effort she puts into it she wouldn’t have invested for the other 356

subjects. I’d say it really motivated her. 357

358

Interviewer. Thanks very much for your time. 359

360

Interview 2. EB/PS Group Interview (Extracts) 361

Interviewer. Thanks for taking part in this interview. Em I’ve got an impression of your 362

experiences from your questionnaire. I’d just like to use this interview to go onto them in a bit 363

more depth. Em the background first of all. So .. em after the Wall came down, what were you 364

both doing? What sort of school were you in 365

366

P. Primary school 367

368

Interviewer. Primary school? 369

370

E. Before the Wende or after? 371

372

Interviewer. After. 373

374

E. Primary school 375

376

Interviewer. Although you had a teacher diploma? 377

378 P. Yes 379

380 E. Yes 381

382 Interviewer. It’s just I had the impression you would find teachers with diplomas more in 383

the secondary sector? 384

385 P. I had a very cute 5

th year class and I didn’t want to give them up! That’s why I went over 386

into the primary school when things were re-structured. I could’ve stayed in lower secondary. 387


115

388 Interviewer. After the Wende 389

390 P. Yes. 391

392 Interviewer. So previously you were in lower secondary. 393

394 P. Yes. 395

396

Interviewer. What did you teach? 397

398 P. Euh Maths, careers and biology. 399

400

Interviewer. Oh. And what about you. 401

402 E. I taught maths and physics. But I always taught physics in year 6. And maths too. I use to 403

prefer teaching maths to year 5 and 6 than to the bigger classes. That’s why I decided for the 404

wee ones rather than having to teach from Year 7. 405

Interviewer. Uh huh. And, right, so.. You started your careers in secondary schools and then 406

taught in the primary sector. 407

408 E. Uh huh. 409

410 P. Yeah. 411

412

Interviewer. And how was that change? Was it fun or was it stressful. 413

414 P. Well it wasn’t so much of a change for me because this 5

th Year, the secondary stage went 415

from Year 5 to10. 416

417

Interviewer. Oh right. Yes. And- 418

419

P. - and then primary schools went from Year 1 to 6 . I still teach classes 5 and 6 so it 420

wasn’t really a change for me. 421

422

Interviewer. When the school types changed, did you teach the same subjects? 423

424 E. Yes 425

426 P. Yes. 427

428

Interviewer. And euh.. how did you both hit on the idea of studying English. 429

430 E. When I first wanted to become a teacher I wanted to be a teacher of maths and English. 431

But this combination didn’t exist at that time, so I had to opt for maths and choose another 432

subject. And after the Wall when I had the opportunity to study English I grabbed it right 433

away. 434

435

Interviewer. Yeah? You had wanted to do it for a good while? 436


116

437

E. Yes. 438

439

Interviewer. Euh hm. 440

441

P. Well it was different in my case. I was needed. Our school needed an English teacher and 442

my headmaster found that many, many years ago I had done a modern language at Abitur (A 443

Level). I had done some of my classes as bilingual classes in French, English and Russian. 444

And so he said you’re the only one who can do this. You’ll do this. And first of all it was a 445

course just for one year.. A really easy course. The Sonderprogramm came later and it was a 446

surprise. I really hadn’t planned on doing it. 447

448 Interviewer. Did you just apply for the course yourself or did someone suggest it to you. 449

450

P. Euh it was suggested to me. But I was really glad. After the first course was over, and it 451

had been fun, so I said now you can carry on with it. 452

453 Interviewer. So you really did voluntarily? 454

455

E. And it was the same with me. No one said you have to do this or that.. 456

457

P. - Yeah but it was expected. 458

459

E. Mmm… But not in my case. 460

461

Interviewer. No? (pause) but here P. in your questionnaire for example you’ve said 462

“Previous subject specialism wasn’t as much in demand” 463

464

P. Yes, careers as a subject folded up. And the whole technological area was restructured – as 465

ICT for example. And I would’ve had to study ICT to stay up to date and I didn’t want to. I 466

had no talent for it and no interest. And I was more interested in languages and since they 467

needed an English teacher, I preferred English. 468

469

Interviewer. And at the back of your mind, did you have the notion that there was a danger 470

of unemployment. 471

472

P. Well, immediately after the Wende actually yes. There was quite a lot of panic. And when 473

you are simply not as much in demand.. every colleague tried to study a new subject. And lots 474

of us did it. Me too. And I had a look. I would’ve quite liked to study biology but then it was 475

English 476

477

E. With me it wasn’t so much the fear of unemployment but it was the fear of having to 478

change. I wanted to keep teaching the smaller ones and was afraid I’d have to change and 479

work in the restructured lower secondary. I just didn’t want to. And that’s why I said to 480

myself, there’s going to be a need for English teachers. They’ll need qualified English 481

teachers. 482

483

Interviewer. Was there more demand for English teachers in primary schools than in 484

secondary. 485


117

486

E. Yes. 487

488

P. Yes.. there weren’t any. 489

490

E. There weren’t any. The qualified teachers were all in secondary schools. 491

492

P. English was optional in GDR times from Year 7 – 10 and that’s why there were so few 493

English teachers. 494

495

Interviewer. How long was your training for your teaching diploma? 496

497

P. Four years. 498

499

E. Four years. 500

501

Interviewer. Four years? At university? 502

503

E. Yes. 504

505

P. Or teacher training college. 506

507

Interviewer. Teacher training college 508

509

E. For me it was a teacher training college. 510

511

P. And I did maths at university. 512

513

Interviewer. Uh huh. And then you could.. could you decide then if you would go to work in 514

a secondary or a primary school? 515

516

E. No. 517

518

P. No 519

520

E. You were placed in Years 5 to 10. You couldn’t decide whether to work in a primary 521

school or not? 522

523

P. And we earned 100 Marks more than the teachers in lower classes. 524

525

Interviewer. Oh? 526

527

P. Mm. 528

529

Interviewer. And what about the LuK teachers, what did they do after school. 530

E. They could leave school after Year 10 and go into a teacher training institute (Institute für 531

Lehrerbildung) – 532

533

- P. Ja. IfL – 534


118

535

- E. And they studied for 3 years- 536

537

- P. Four – 538

539

-E. Or four years. 540

541

P. three to begin with then a fourth. 542

543

E. And were trained then for classes 1-4. They had a broad curriculum including maths and 544

German and then a third subject and in our case we specialised more in two subjects. We had 545

to do Abitur (A Levels) first. Had to stay on until Year 12- 546

547

- Interviewer. Right. 548

549

E. - at school first and then on from there. 550

551 Interviewer. Yes interesting . I noticed in the questionnaires that there was mixture of LuK 552

and Diploma qualified teachers in the group. 553

554

P.Yes. 555

556

E. Yes. 557

558

(pause) Interviewer. When you made the decision to undertake this study programme, how 559

did you imagine it? 560

561

E. I didn’t have any idea. In went into it in all innocence! (laughs) 562

563

Interviewer. Yeah? 564

565

E. Mm. 566

567

P. My boss said to me you’ll do this… and then (laughs) then we just started. 568

569

E. You know, if I’d known what was ahead of me, I probably – 570

571

- P. Yes. 572

573

- E. wouldn’t have done it. 574

575

P. Yeah. Me too. 576

577

Interviewer. Honestly 578

579

E. Yep. 580

581

P. Yes, it was really hard. 582

583


119

E. All that literature and history and all the things I don’t need in my teaching.. I found it 584

sometimes very demoralising. 585

586

Interviewer. Mm…Euh. And, but first of all there was a sort of consultation, isn’t that 587

right? 588

589

E. No. 590

591

Interviewer. No? 592

593

E. No none. Did you get a consultation 594

595

P. When we .. we were told about the course what it contained and that it was very difficult 596

and.. and… 597

598

E. yes ok we were invited to an interview… but.. it didn’t happen 599

600

Interviewer. When it started, was it a big shock? The level or the.. 601

602

E. No. 603

604

P. No. 605

606

E. It went up as the course went on 607

608

Interviewer. But mostly it was manageable and 609

610

E. Yes. 611

612

P. It was manageable. Yes 613

614

Interviewer. Euh 615

616

P. Well we had a long way to go to get there. First of all we did a course with a colleague in a 617

school. Then there was a course with an American. Then we had to wait a year for the 618

programme, we didn’t get on it immediately and bridged that gap while we were waiting with 619

evening classes in an FE college 620

621

Interviewer. Oh really? Did you have to do that? 622

623

P. Euh we did it voluntarily so that we wouldn’t get out of training. And only then did we get 624

admission to the Sonderprogramm. So.. it took YEARS. 625

626

Interviewer. Oh? SO you started ..euhm… 1996? 627

628

E. 95 629

630

Interviewer. 95. But as early as 92.. 92 the idea 631

632


120

P. From 92. Yes. 92. That’s when it really started. 633

634

Interviewer. So .. I get the impression the decision to do this course was really an internal 635

one.. an inner decision 636

637

E. Yes – 638

639

- P. In the end of the day – 640

641

- E. Yes. 642

643

P. Yes. When the opportunity came for the training programme, it was our decision. But not 644

at the start. 645

646

Interviewer. No. And as the programme went on? Whenever it got tough, did you regret it? 647

Did you ever want to give up? 648

649

E. Well I didn’t. I said what I’ve started I’ll see through to the end. I’ll fight and get through - 650

even if sometimes I was fed up with it 651

652

Interviewer. Just for your own sake. 653

654

E. For me. Yes… and … euh.. at some stage or other I said, you’ll get through this, you’ve set 655

yourself a goal and you’ll do it. (pause) (laughs) and I was proud of myself that I had 656

managed it. 657

658

P. And I – 659

660 - Interviewer. Were you always like that? (sorry). Always like that. Ambitious and 661

determined. 662

663

E. Yes. Yes. 664

665

Interviewer. Ambitious. Disciplined? 666

667

E. laughs No. Disciplined no. 668

669

Interviewer. But you had to be. 670

671

E. yes.. yes 672

673

P. Yes 674

675

Interviewer. Sorry what were you going to say. 676

677

P. Yes I had to take a year out for illness. And for me it was twice as hard to get back in – 678

679

- Interviewer. So there was a strong temptation to give up? 680

681


121

P. Yes. But I really had good friends – really good friends who said, get back into it, we’ll 682

help you. And that was really good. This support. From the teachers as well. 683

684

Interviewer. Pardon. 685

686

P. the teachers were really good as well. I had to miss a whole year and had totally different 687

teachers. The timetable was different. Everything was mixed up. I had done some parts of the 688

course and not others. It all was really not easy. And then – 689

690

Interviewer. And then… Were your working hours reduced? 691

P. Your teaching load was reduced less and less. We started I think with 5 hours reduction. 692

One day was for studying with five teaching periods. And then later it was four and then in 693

my case it was three. So less and less from year to year. 694

695

Interviewer. And the level got higher and – 696

697

- E. Correct. 698

- 699

Interviewer. ..higher and the 700

701

E. The reduction got less and less. 702

703

P. Yes. 704

705

Interviewer. Mm. For you as well. 706

707

P. Yes at the start I had five hours reduction then it was four. I had a lot of support from my 708

boss. Which I still have…. I had a lot of support from my colleagues.. Which doesn’t go 709

without saying. 710

711

E. No. I didn’t get that in my school. 712

713

Interviewer. It just got tougher and tougher. 714

715

P. yes it was really heavy load. 716

717

Interviewer. And what motivated you most… In your case, expressing it roughly, your own 718

pride 719

720

E. ..Eum yes 721

722

Interviewer. I mean not really interest in English as such. 723

724

E. No. 725

726

Interviewer. And you too? 727

728

P. No with me it was the language itself. Really the language always. I had this modern 729

languages Abitur. Had this bilingual education and I loved English and I originally wanted to 730


122

study economics at university and made the wrong choice and became a teacher. I never 731

really wanted to! (laughs) But… the language I always loved the language. But in GDR times 732

there wasn’t much point. We couldn’t get out. We couldn’t use it and .. well you know.. 733

English teachers… 734

735

Interviewer. And afterwards? 736

737

P. And then there was the attraction after the Wende, now you can travel, see the world, use 738

your English. And the attraction was there for me. It was very selfish. I have to say it wasn’t 739

for the pupils. It was more for me. (laughs) 740

741

Interviewer. But during the study, was that more or less forgotten when you were under 742

pressure… or was it always alive. 743

744

P. Always alive. I always loved the language. I did Russian … although I was also good at 745

Russian … but I never liked the language. I always did love English. 746

747


749

Interviewer. Did many give up? 750

751

E. Oh yes. Lots gave up. In the course of three years. I reckon at the beginning there were 30 752

and I guess at the end there were around only 20 there. 753

754

Interviewer. And they still haven’t finished? 755

756

P. No 757

758

E. No 759

760

Interviewer. Just a few other questions. If you turned the clock back now and there you are 761

again in 1995 or 96 would you do it again? 762

763

E. knowing what I know now, no. 764

765

P. I’m not sure. (laughs) Well, we have got older unfortunately… and now with my life the 766

way it is now, I probably wouldn’t do it. 767

768

E. I would’ve liked to do it at a slightly older age so that my child would be a bit more grown 769

up. That was sometimes a problem for me. I missed a lot of what was going on with him at 770

school. And looking back I sometimes think it’s a pity that I didn’t have more time for him. 771

772

(interview continues) 773 774

(Both teach almost exclusively English. P would recommend the programme wholeheartedly 775

but only if people loved the language and were in good health. E would not. P says the 776

programme has brought her enormous benefits personally and career-wise. E says it wouldn’t 777

have been her dream to teach entirely an English timetable.) 778

779


123

Interview 3 (Extracts) 780

781

Interviewer. What were you teaching before the Wende? 782

783 I was a sports teacher. 784

785

Interviewer. Did you only teach sport? 786

787

Yes. 788

789

Interviewer. Euh.. Ok. How did you come onto the idea of doing the Sonderprogramm? 790

791

I was trained as a sports teacher and taught sport in an engineering school before the Wende. 792

After the Wende the school was closed. 793

794

Interviewer. Oh. Why was it closed? 795

796

Lots of schools were closed after the Wende. That’s just the way it was. And I was offered, I 797

got a job in a Fachschule in S______. They needed English teachers so I started teaching 798

English as well. 799

800

Interviewer. But at first you only taught sport, is that right? 801

802

Yes. 803

804

Interviewer. So who had the idea first. You or your school management? I mean to do the 805

English retraining? 806

807

They did. They passed the information on to me and I applied. 808

809

Interviewer. Did you do that voluntarily - or was there pressure? 810

811

I volunteered because I had always been interested in English. 812

813

Interviewer. Since school days? 814

815

Yes. I did it up to A level. 816

817

Interviewer. And you liked it? Why I’m interested is because in your questionnaire you 818

mentioned you were also afraid of unemployment. 819

820

A lot of people were. And you really needed to retrain and have a second subject. 821

822

Interviewer. And you had only taught sport. I’d’ve thought schools always needed sports 823

teachers and you would have been certain of a job. 824

825

But they needed English teachers more and sport became less popular after the Wende and 826

English became more popular. 827

828


124

Interviewer. Really? It’s the opposite with us. Most kids would rather have sport than a 829

foreign language. 830

831

No lots of things have changed. And the sort of students I have ..euhm… they’re very mixed. 832

And I have some terrible classes. But they don’t want to do sport. It was different before in 833

GDR times. 834

835

Interviewer. So now you teach sport and English? 836

837

No. Only English. 838

839

Interviewer. Since when? 840

841

From em about five years ago. 842

843

Interviewer. So you started the Sonderprogramm more or less voluntarily. You were 844

interested in English but at the same time you saw it as useful for your career. 845

846

Yes. You could retrain in other subjects. Social sciences for example. First of all I had to do 847

a preparatory year. That was hard. 848

849

Interviewer. In what way? 850

851

On top of work. You got one day off but there wasn’t enough time. 852

853

Interviewer. How many hours work did it take - outside seminar time I mean? One of the 854

other people I interviewed reckoned it took about 10 hours per week. 855

856

20 857

858

Interviewer. 20 hours per week?! 859

860

Mm. 861

862

Interviewer. Outside seminar time? 863

864

Yes. You just had to. There wasn’t enough time to do all the reading you had to do. 865

866

Interviewer. Your stay in N Ireland was part of that preparatory year. 867

868

Yes at the end of it. 869

870

Interviewer. So then you started the Sonderprogramm proper. Did things ease up a bit after 871

that? 872

873

No. 874

875

Interviewer. It wasn’t any easier? 876

877


125

It was the same. Constant for all the three years. There just wasn’t enough time. I just had to 878

tell myself, you can’t do everything. 879

880

Interviewer. Were you ever tempted to give up? 881

882

Oh yes! Lots of times! I was ill… in the third year. I had eye trouble and I was off for 10 883

weeks. They said it was because of stress. Because of the studying. 884

885

Interviewer. But you didn’t give up? 886

887

No I rang them in Potsdam and they said try it anyway. 888

889

Interviewer. When was that? 890

891

Just before the exams. About eight weeks before. 892

893

Interviewer. And you passed it anyway? 894

895

Yes. 896

897

Interviewer. Good for you! Your 20 hours a week paid off! 898

899

Mm. 900

901

Interviewer. And I’m sure you got support from your family and others around you. Others 902

in the group. 903

904

Yes they all encouraged me. 905

906

Interviewer. Euhm.. when you felt like giving up, what so you think was the main thing that 907

kept you going? Your interest in English or your career prospects? 908

909

Career. And also I said, this is no going to beat me. 910

911

Interviewer. You weren’t going to give in ?! 912

913

No. 914

915

Interviewer. Were you always like that? 916

917

I suppose I was. I don’t like to give up. 918

919

Interviewer. You’re just like that? 920

921

Yes. 922

923

Interviewer. So there were three things really: your love of English, your fear about your 924

job hours and this sort of will to fight? 925

926


126

Yes. 927

928

Interviewer. When things got tough and when you felt like giving up.. (pause) Oh and I 929

wanted to ask you, did you ever have to repeat any aspect of the course? 930

931

No. 932

933

Interviewer. No? Well done. A good student? When things were really tough, did you ever 934

feel you were losing your love of English. Did that ever dwindle in any way? 935

936

(Pause. Shakes head.) No. I’ve always loved English. 937

938

Interviewer. Would you say you liked English more now than before the Studium. Or the 939

same? Stable? 940

941

Stable. Yes. 942

943

Interviewer. Do you ever get a chance to go to England or Scotland? 944

945

Yes my husband and I went last year to America. 946

947

Interviewer. America? 948

949

Mm. Last year. 950

951

Interviewer. That helps keep your English fresh. What else do you do to keep up to date? 952

953

There are some English programmes on the radio. There are things I would like to read. But I 954

have to spend SO long every day preparing for my lessons. Every day. Hours. 955

956

Interviewer. So it doesn’t leave you much time? But if there are programmes on tv you 957

watch them? 958

959

Yes. 960

961

Interviewer. And radio too? 962

963

Yes. 964

965

Interviewer. A couple more questions. Would you recommend the Sonderprogramm to 966

others? 967

968

(pause) Yes. 969

970

Interviewer. Do you ever wish you were teaching sport again. Exclusively? Or along with 971

English? 972

973

No. I mean some of my classes are hard. But I don’t want to teach sport again. The children 974

don’t like it. 975


127

976

Interviewer. If you turned the clock back, if you could turn the clock back to say 1995, let’s 977

say, and you knew what you know now, would you do it all again? 978

979

I would. Yes. 980

981

Interviewer. Despite it making you ill? 982

983

Yes? 984

985

Interviewer. So it was a positive experience for you? Positive for your career? DO you 986

enjoy teaching English. I mean is it really fun – or is it just a job for you? 987

988

No I enjoy it. It’s fun… well…not always. It’s hard sometimes. I have some bad classes, 989

some difficult pupils. The sort you get in any school. 990

991

Interviewer. Are they older or younger the ones you taught before the Wende. 992

993

A bit younger. 994

995

Interviewer. Younger? 996

997

A bit. 16-20. 998

999

….(The interview continues about the interviewee’s experiences of the different 1000

components. She stresses the motivating impact of stays abroad both in N Ireland and in 1001

Colchester)…. 1002

1003

Interviewer. So learning English has been a positive experience for you. 1004

1005

Oh yes. I was the oldest and was the only vocational teacher. Some of the others had children 1006

but because mine were already bigger I managed it. 1007

1008

Interviewer. And you would do it all again? 1009

1010

I would. Definitely. 1011

1012

That’s been really useful. 1013

1014

1015

Interview 4 (Extracts) 1016

1017

Interviewer. So you learned Russian at school. 1018

1019

Yes. I learned Russian. Up to A Level. 1020

1021

Interviewer. And then at University as well? 1022

1023


128

Yes 1024

1025

Interviewer. And you were a fully qualified Russian teacher. And before the Wende you 1026

taught Russian exclusively? 1027

1028

And German as well. English no. I had taken English to A Level but forgot it all. 1029

1030

Interviewer. Did you like Russian at school? 1031

1032

Yes, yes. I liked languages. 1033

1034

Interviewer. And why did you choose to specialise in Russian? 1035

1036

Because I had such a fantastic Russian teacher. 1037

1038

Interviewer. Oh 1039

1040

Yeah. She was a native speaker and she came when I was in year 11 and she could 1041

(inaudible) . We more or less spoke Russian all the time with her. At first I intended to be a 1042

maths and chemistry teacher. I wasn’t thinking of languages. But I was always good at 1043

languages. I was in a special school for sciences 1044

1045 - Interviewer. Here in F________ 1046

1047

- but I developed… Yes in F_________ developed an interest in languages. 1048

1049 Interviewer. Did you parents speak Russian? 1050

1051

My mum. She could speak Russian. My dad only knew a few words. 1052

1053 Interviewer. Yeah. But you couldn’t use Russian with the occupying army here on the 1054

border. 1055

1056

Very little. It wasn’t really allowed to mix - 1057

1058 - Interviewer. Pity. Pity 1059

1060

- but I had penpals. 1061

1062 Interviewer. Did you get the chance to go to Russia. 1063

1064

Well I studied there a whole year. 1065

1066 Interviewer. Where? In Moscow? 1067

1068

1069

No in R____ its more down in the south. Before that 6 weeks in Sm______ And then the 1070

year. 1071

1072


129

Interviewer. And did you really enjoy Russian? I mean was it fun for you? 1073

1074

I always loved the language. The sounds of it. I find it is a very melodic language. The thing 1075

was though the pupils didn’t like it. And you had real job getting them to .. 1076

1077 - Interviewer. Even before the Wall came down 1078

1079

- even before the Wende. As a Russian teacher you weren’t very well respected. It was better 1080

when I taught German. 1081

1082 Interviewer. Was it because of this pressure, - 1083

-yes. 1084

1085 Interviewer. - that everyone HAD to learn Russian and maybe they would’ve preferred to 1086

learn English. 1087

1088

Yeah. It was just because everyone had to do it. Mm. 1089

1090 Interviewer. And then after the Wende. How did things look? When did it occur to you 1091

you’d need to specialise in a new subject? 1092

1093

Well, there was a display board in school where you got information that people were being 1094

recruited for a course of study and you could apply. And there were many, many schools 1095

after the Wende which just stopped… stopped Russian… who..it was- 1096

1097 - Interviewer. All of a sudden? 1098

1099 - Yes . the fact that they didn’t have to do Russian anymore and instead of Russian they could 1100

maths or chemistry…or something like that. You know? And there just weren’t the pupils. 1101

And you could foresee that in a few years there just wouldn’t be the pupils taking Russian. 1102

1103 Interviewer. Were you worried that you could be made redundant? 1104

1105

Well, yeah. Sure. The fact that I had so few teaching hours. True I had German- but there 1106

were plenty of German teachers there. So… And we had heard this about Capitalism: if there 1107

isn’t enough work, then you are just unemployed, you just had to go! So I applied and had to 1108

this introductory course first for two years- 1109

1110

- Interviewer. Two years? 1111

1112

It lasted two years. You had days set aside each month… and the rest you had to do at home. 1113

1114

Mm. 1115

1116 Interviewer. Have you an idea how many hours a week you had to spend on it? 1117

1118

I don’t know. But I didn’t have much time at that stage. I had just changed school… and 1119

..euhm.. I tried more or less just to get the homeworks done. And prepared intensively for the 1120

exams afterward as which I … 1121


130

- Interviewer. What sort of school did you change to? 1122

1123

Euh, I was in a comprehensive school which then became a primary school. And I knew I’d 1124

have to go anyway. And I didn’t want to work with small children. I always wanted to work 1125

with older children. And that’s how I ended up in a further education school. I’m glad I did it. 1126

1127

That I took this step. 1128

1129 Interviewer. Did you start teaching English right away. 1130

1131

No. Not at all. I didn’t teach any English. Not even when I was doing the Sonderprogramm. 1132

1133

Just in the very last year… when I did the exam. That’s when I started teaching English. 1134

1135 Interviewer. So from 0 – 100%. 1136

1137 None at all. I didn’t teach any. 1138

1139 Interviewer. So when you changed school – 1140

1141

- I taught German. 1142

1143

Interviewer. German and Russian- 1144

1145 - German to A Level and that was difficult .I had to learn everything myself first. What they 1146

expected of me, I hadn’t studied it myself. And the curriculum… there were things we just 1147

didn’t teach in GDR times. So I couldn’t invert much time in the English pre-course 1148

programme. But it was enough that I passed the thing. And afterwards I did a lot more for the 1149

Sonderprogramm. 1150

1151 Interviewer. Others have said they needed to spend between 10 and 20 hours per week. 1152

1153

Was that- 1154

1155

- It varied. Like I said in the pre-course I had very little time and afterwards I did quite a lot. 1156

1157

Interviewer. Which did you find more difficult, the pre-course or the degree course. 1158

1159

From the point of view of time, like I said, ‘cos lots of things all happened at once it was 1160

hard. And I had to feel my way back into the language. And the changing school. And ..euh.. 1161

1162 Interviewer. But was it fun to be working with English again? 1163

1164

Yeah sure – 1165

1166

- Interviewer. From the beginning? 1167

1168

- No not at first. At the start I was nearly despaired. Thought, you’ll never manage this. 1169

Yeah? And despaired. - 1170


131

- Interviewer. Mm. 1171

1172

Often in fact. The thing was difficult in itself. For a start the grammar. Most people thought 1173

the first thing you needed was grammar. But the first thing you need is vocabulary… and 1174

euhm.. And when I started the Sonderprogramm I started building up a foundation of 1175

vocabulary….Every morning I learned new words. Kept them in a little box. 1176

1177 Interviewer. Was that your idea? 1178

1179

That was my idea. And then … when it was full you started a second. 1180

Every word you learned went into the second box. If you didn’t know it it stayed in the first. 1181

1182 Interviewer. Uh Huh. 1183

1184

Yeah and…That’s how I acquired a basic vocabulary. It took a lot of discipline, I have to 1185

admit. Sitting down every morning and learning vocab. 1186

1187 Interviewer. Mm. 1188

1189

But I was ambitious and wanted to do it. 1190

1191 Interviewer. Mm. But did it start bring fun soon after the start of the pre-course or later in 1192

the degree course. 1193

1194

I mean there was always a bit of fun. Especially when I could read…. relatively easily… And 1195

I could understand oral work. But it started becoming more fun when I had a certain level of 1196

vocabulary. And then started to read.. 1197

1198 Interviewer. Was self confidence a factor/ I mean the feeling that now you could… you 1199

were making progress? 1200

1201

Yes definitely. I mean self confidence came when you saw you were making progress. 1202

1203 Interviewer. Was that an aspect of the pleasure you found in it.. this sense of success? 1204

1205

Yes. In the degree course. (inaudible…) And then I was in Scotland with the children. That 1206

was a factor then too……My husband was there and the children were young. (inaudible) out 1207

in the evenings 1208

1209 Interviewer. Mm. And then came N Ireland? 1210

1211

Yeah. Before that I was in Bristol for two weeks. I was on an EU funded language course. 1212

And then N Ireland. 1213

1214 Interviewer. Was that February? 1215

1216

I’m not sure. The preparatory course was before the Sonderprogramm proper. And then the 1217

study programme started. It was before. And then Colchester in 1998. And N Ireland was just 1218

at the end. Nearly at the end. 1219


132

1220 Interviewer. At various times were you never tempted to give it all up? 1221

1222

No… No. 1223

1224 Interviewer. Not at all. 1225

1226

No I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t give up? 1227

1228 Interviewer. Why? I mean you could have given it up? 1229

1230

Yes, no one would’ve minded. My family would’ve minded. Euhm. Basically I have to say 1231

by nature I’m ambitious.. you know… and am one of those people who when they start a 1232

thing like to finish it. So I think that’s in your character. And.. But then as well it was fun. It 1233

started to be fun. I was very interested in literature, language, I found all that exciting and 1234

euh… I mean you really learned in the course. Really learned lots. And I liked it. And for my 1235

work now. I can draw a lot on my own experience of study - 1236

1237 - Interviewer. Mm. That’s true, isn’t it? 1238

1239

- for working with adults that useful. 1240

1241


1243 Interviewer. It is something different isn’t it? 1244

1245

Mm. And you have to have a feel for it. Euhm.. 1246

1247 Interviewer. And when you … so you’ve mentioned two things: firstly your drive, then fun. 1248

And was it the case that when things got tough during the study, that worries about 1249

unemployment were an important factor. 1250

1251

Yeah. That was true for lots of people. 1252

1253


And I thought with a third language, if I have to go - I mean I didn’t necessarily want to be 1256

teaching evening classes… if I have to go then you can market yourself better with another 1257

language like English. 1258

1259 Interviewer. Did you ever feel a certain resentment about having been forced into doing this 1260

programme by the whole situation. That you had to do something like this at all? 1261

No. Not at all. No. It was my own decision. I wouldn’t have had to do it. You know? …. No. 1262

Not at all. And I’m glad I did it. Because personally I’ve got a lot out of it - 1263

- 1264

- Interviewer. Yeah? 1265

- 1266

- Yeah. And the self confidence that you have managed something like this. And I was 1267

nearly 40 when I finished and I thought for example that I couldn’t learn things by heart 1268


133

any more. That I just wouldn’t be able to manage something like that. The degree course 1269

showed me that I can. And I can tell my own students that. You can do it. 1270

1271


goes on to say that the courses abroad were not terribly influential. Esp in Bristol and Colch- 1274

too much German spoken. Different in N I. (“The one week in N Ireland did more for me 1275

than 3 weeks”) because she was alone. 1276

1277 Interviewer. So the whole thing was a positive experience. Would you recommend it to 1278

others. 1279

1280

Definitely! 1281

1282 Interviewer. If you had a choice now between teaching English and teaching Russian, what 1283

would you choose? 1284

1285

I’d choose English... English. 1286

1287

(Interview continues) 1288


134

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