The relations among the communicativeness of classroom activities, student motivation, communication in the classroom, and achievement in language learning

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the relationships among types of classroom activities, defined as either structural or communicative, and the motivation, communication, and achievement of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. The participants were 22 Turkish EFL students at the pre-intermediate level of proficiency attending the Middle East Technical University Preparatory program. The researcher used two different techniques to collect her data for this study: classroom observations to determine communication, operationalized as student participation in the classroom, and questionnaires to measure students' motivation. The study attempted to answer three research questions. The first research question concerned to what extent student motivation is related to the communicativeness of classroom activities. The mean score calculated from the motivation questionnaires showed that students' motivation during communicative activities was higher than the mean score for motivation during structural activities (Ms = 3.22 and 2.78, respectively). Thus, communicative activities were able to motivate more than structural activities. The second research question answered the question to what extent participation in the classroom is related to the commnunicativeness of classroom activities. The results obtained from the observation checklists indicated that the students participated more, and thus communicated more during communicative activities since the mean score for participation during communicative activities was higher than the mean score for participation during structural activities (Ms=6.62 and 2.16, respectively). The third research question investigated to what extent the achievement of students is related to their motivation and classroom participation. The results showed a strong relationship between both structural and communicative participation and achievement (r= .57 and .59; p = .005 and .003 respectively), but the relationship between both types of students' motivation and achievement was not significant. However, an indirect relationship between motivation and achievement was found, since motivation is related to participation, which in turn is related to achievement. In addition, results of the study show 67% co-variance between structural and communicative participation, suggesting that students who participate in structural activities also take part in communicative activities, and vice versa. There is also considerable co-variance, 54%, between motivation during structural activities and motivation during communicative activities, indicating that students who are motivated during one type of activity are also motivated during the other type. The results of the study showed that there is a strong relationship among activity types and motivation, participation, and achievement of the students. If teachers keep in mind that students can be motivated to participate in class, and that participation in both structural and communicative activities is strongly related to achievement, they will include activities in the classroom which enable students to participate in the class and thus to get good results in learning the language.