Motivation, Reading, and Extramural English: A study on if, and how, teachers of English work with motivation toward literature in relation to extramural English

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Motivation, Reading, and Extramural English

A study on if, and how, teachers of English work with motivation toward literature in relation to extramural English

Motivation, litteratur och extramural engelska

En studie om, och hur, engelsklärare arbetar med motivation till läsning i relation till extramural engelska

Alexsandra Hallén

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Subject: English

Level: English III, Degree Project Credits: 15hp

Supervisor: Marika Kjellén Examiner: Johan Wijkmark Spring 2020

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Title: Motivation, Reading, and Extramural English: A study on if and how teachers of English work with motivation toward reading in relation to extramural English

Titel på svenska: Motivation, litteratur och extramural engelska: en studie om, och hur, engelsk- lärare arbetar med motivation till läsning i relation till extramural engelska

Author: Alexsandra Hallén

Pages: 46

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of secondary school English teachers in regard to their students’ motivation toward reading and literature in school. The aim of this study was also to examine if the teachers had experienced that extramural English has had any positive and/or negative effects on their students’ motivation. The study was carried out through a survey with 60 secondary level teachers of English and four qualitative interviews with secondary level teachers. The results showed that students, in general, tend to be unmotivated and reluctant toward reading, and that teachers work to solve this by using strategies such as connecting the reading to the students’ everyday lives and clarifying the purposes of their reading assignments. Most of the respondents believed that extramural English has positive effects on the students’ learning as it helps students improve their language skills outside of school and shows the students that English is useful in their everyday lives. Moreover, most respondents also identified negative effects of extramural English, as it might provide students with a sort of language that is not appropriate in school. The short texts and language tools may also affect the students’ reading skills as they acquire English without having to read long texts or process what they read in the same ways as they would in school. Thus, extramural English was, according to many of the respondents, believed be one of the reasons as to why students are not motivated to read in school.

Keywords: Motivation, reading, literature, extramural English, secondary school.

Sammanfattning på svenska

Syftet med denna studie var att utforska högstadie- och gymnasielärares erfarenheter av deras elevers motivation till läsning och litteratur på engelska i skolan. Vidare var syftet att undersöka om lärarna hade upplevt att fritidsengelskan haft några positiva och/eller negativa effekter på deras elevers motivation. Studien genomfördes dels genom en enkätundersökning som besvarades av 60 engelsklärare, behöriga för högstadie-och gymnasienivå, dels genom fyra kvalitativa intervjuer med högstadie- och gymnasielärare. Resultaten visade att elever, generellt sett, är omotiverade till att läsa och att lärare arbetar för att motverka detta genom att använda strategier så som att koppla läsningen till elevernas egna liv samt genom att tydliggöra syftet med sina uppgifter. Majoriteten av respondenterna ansåg att fritidsengelskan har positiva effekter på elevernas lärande eftersom det

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hjälper dem att utveckla sina språkfärdigheter utanför skola samt visar eleverna att engelska är användbart i deras vardag. Tilläggningsvis identifierade de flesta respondenterna även negativa effekter av fritidsengelskan eftersom den kan förse eleverna med ett språk som inte är passande för skolan. De korta texterna och språkliga onlineverktygen ansågs också påverka elevernas läsfärdighet då de lär sig engelska utan att behöva läsa långa texter eller bearbeta vad de läser på samma sätt som i skolan. Därmed troddes även fritidsengelskan utgöra en av anledningarna till att elever inte är motiverade att läsa i skolan.

Nyckelord: Motivation, läsning, litteratur, fritidsengelska, extramural engelska, högstadiet, gymnasiet.

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1. Introduction and aims

Today, Swedish learners of English are in direct connection with the world around them through the possibilities of the internet. People, movies, languages, and cultures are just a click away on a computer or smartphone. By participating in online gaming, watching vlogs on YouTube, or streaming TV-series and movies on streaming services, students are exposed to other languages, particularly English, to a much larger extent than previously. Certain skills, such as speaking, have been improved by the opportunities of using English outside of school, whereas skills such as reading and processing literature have been worsened (Papadima-Sophocleous, 2009, p.119).

Along with digitalization, the students’ reading has become focused on quickly finding the purpose or the facts of a text, such as when reading a news article. However, when it comes to literature, the meaning of reading is not as simplified as a quest to finding information or facts. Students are required to be able to analyze texts and find, for example, possible meanings and messages in them. For many students it has become more of a challenge to process literary works such as novels or poems. In the, so-called, information society we live in, the abilities to discover hidden meanings and sense morals, as well as interpret literary works in connection to the world around us have become more and more important. It is, therefore, necessary to motivate students to develop these abilities that tend to go lost when only looking for facts and quickly defined purposes. However, not being exposed to, and thus not having to process, long texts online affects the development of these important abilities negatively. It has also lowered the motivation toward reading in general (Papadima- Sophocleous, 2009, p.119). Motivation is always current and relevant in the discourse of teaching, or as described by Middleton and Perks (2014, p.1), “it is an often sought, but less often found, quality of students and classrooms”. Thus, how to motivate students to read despite the negative impact of Extramural, or out-of-school, English ought to be a vital question for English teachers.

According to GY11, the English courses in upper secondary schools should aim to develop the students’ knowledge of the language so that they can use it in different situations for different purposes. One of the main proficiencies to develop during the English course is reception, which means that students need to understand both spoken and written English within a range of different purposes and situations (The Swedish National Bureau of Education, 2011). In other words, reading is an incredibly important skill, and students need to be able to understand and process written language of different types and with different purposes. Moreover, literature is an effective tool to develop other areas of a language, such as vocabulary and grammar (Lundahl, 2009, p.331). Reading gives L2 learners the possibility

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to improve their vocabulary and grammar as it exposes them to new words and grammatical structures in different contexts (Yulia, 2018, p.41). As reading is important both to pass the course requirements and to improve other language skills, it is vital that teachers know how to motivate their students to read. Since there is research showing that students’ exposure to Extramural, or out-of-school, English, has negative effects on both their motivation toward reading and their actual reading skills, it is also important to know how to work in coexistence with Extramural English.

The hypothesis, from which this study has emerged, is that lower and upper secondary students in general have negative attitudes toward reading and processing literature. The aim of this study is to investigate whether that is the case or not, and how teachers, in that case, deal with such attitudes. Thus, the aim is to explore if, and how, teachers work to change the negative attitudes and instead motivate their students toward reading and processing literature. Furthermore, as a possible reason for the negative attitudes might be larger exposure to Extramural English, the study aims to find what ways teachers take Extramural English into consideration when planning their literary lessons. The study will thus focus on the following research questions:

• What are the experiences of English teachers in secondary school when it comes to students’ attitudes and motivation toward reading and working with literature in English?

• How do English teachers in secondary school work to motivate their students when it comes to reading literature?

• What advantages and/or disadvantage can English teachers in lower and upper secondary school identify regarding out-of-school English in relation to motivation and working with reading and literature?

To answer the research questions, a survey was distributed to lower and upper secondary teachers and four interviews were carried out with teachers at upper secondary school. In total, 60 secondary level teachers answered the survey.

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2. Background

Modern society has provided adolescents with plenty of possibilities to learn and develop their English. However, the sources of out-of-school English can also affect the learning and motivation toward certain skills, such as reading and processing literature, negatively (Papadima-Sophocleous, 2009, p.118).

This section discusses the concepts of reading (2.1), motivation (2.2) and Extramural English (2.3). Section 2.4 presents previous research on how to teach literature in a society that is surrounded by Extramural English.

2.1 Reading

Reading is the process of making meaning out of written text. It is part of language learning, communication, sharing and receiving information (Thompson & Bushnell, 2009, p.vii). In addition to learning as a way of decoding, there is also the aspect of reading comprehension.

The comprehension of written text does not come automatically and can only be associated with listening comprehension to some extent. When interpreting spoken words and hidden meanings, there are clues such as facial expressions, tone, and stress to rely on. When interpreting written words, there is nothing but the text to derive meaning from (Oakhill &

Cain, 2006, p.381). Therefore, there are many skills required for reading comprehension.

First of all, the reader needs to be able to interpret the meaning of individual words, sentences, and paragraphs, but then also interpret the entire text as a unit. This is done by, for example, being able to identify key messages, ideas, and themes. Moreover, there are other literary keywords that contribute to understanding text, such as characters, plot, and motives. Eventually, readers ought also to be able to draw conclusions to fill in missing information and make motivated assumptions about things that are not explicit in texts (Oakhill & Cain, 2006, p.382). According to Hedge (2000, pp.188-189), the understanding of texts requires a combination of several kinds of knowledge. For example, the reader must have syntactic knowledge to determine whether certain words are to be interpreted as verbs or nouns, and he/she must also have general word knowledge to make connections between the text and society. Moreover, the reader needs to have both sociocultural knowledge and topic knowledge in order to find the meaning of words that would otherwise go misunderstood or unidentified for the reader.

Some of the general goals of reading are to develop the ability to read different kinds of texts in English, to obtain and be able to use different kinds of reading strategies, to

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develop linguistic skills such as vocabulary and grammar, and to be able to analyze texts in terms of meaning and structure (Hedge, 2000, p.205).

2.2 L2 Motivation

According to McDonough, motivation is what makes humans act in order to, for example, learn English. The concept of motivation can be divided into four main areas: why someone would want to learn something, how strong the will to learn is, what kind of person the learner is, and what the task requires from the learner (2007, p.369). The understanding of the concept of motivation has changed and developed throughout the past century. An early conceptualization of motivation saw it as derived from an internal source, or inner drive, to reach individual and basic needs. From thereon, the concepts of motivation evolved toward also including the impact of a person’s context on their motivation. Further conceptualizations then combined both the individual and the environment around the individual and stated that motivation was dependent on how people adapted to a certain environment. However, today researchers believe that motivation is more dynamic and depends on the activity, the individual, and the environment. When applied in an educational context, this calls for conclusion that the learner’s motivation and the teacher’s creation of a motivational environment are dependent on many factors, such as who the student is, what the lesson activity is, and what the learning environment looks like (Middleton & Perks, 2014, p.2).

When looking at the history of motivation in relation to L2 acquisition as a second language, there were previously two key aspects that seemed to be beneficial for a learner’s motivation. The first aspect was integration with the English-speaking community and the second was to emphasize the usefulness of knowing English within the students’ society and culture. However, these aspects can be further generalized by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (McDonough, 2007, p.369). The term extrinsic motivation defines a person’s sources of motivation and might come from somewhere, or someone, else than from within the person trying to learn something. An example of extrinsic motivation is receiving a good grade in a course (Okami, 2014, p.G-7). Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is the motivation that is powered by internal incentives, such as feeling good about learning something (Okami, 2014, p.G-11).

2.2.1 Dörney’s taxonomy of motivation

Motivation changes throughout time and can be divided into the phases of choice, execution, and retrospection (McDonough, 2007, p.370). For an L2 learner, these phases take the form of deciding to learn a language, making an effort to go through the stages of learning as well

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as staying committed to the learning experience, and finally to reach a result and being able to evaluate the learning experience. From a teacher’s perspective, it is both central and challenging to help students through the process of motivation as it requires him/her to present the student with supportive and challenging learning opportunities. Teachers also need to be aware of how they can work to develop their students’ learning and motivational processes, as well as what actions might affect their motivation negatively (McDonough, 2007, p.370).

In 2005, Dörnyei (2011, p.79) introduced the notion of the L2 motivational system as a summary of previous research on language learning motivation. The L2 motivational system combines psychological theories on the self and research on second language learning. Some psychological theories on the self draw on the similarities, differences, and challenges of the possible self and the ideal self. The possible self is the image of what a person might become and all that he/she might be able to do. It can also present the image of what a person cannot do, or what he/she is worried about becoming. Furthermore, the possible self is a way of conceptualizing someone’s full potential and explore what someone is capable of when making an effort to achieve it. In other words, the possible self can be a powerful motivator for students learning a second language (Dörnyei, 2011, p.80). Moreover, there is a more specified version of the possible self, namely the ideal self, which mainly presents desirable positive and ideal traits. The meaning behind the two selves is to motivate people to reach their possible and ideal selves and to minimalize the differences between them and the current self (Dörnyei, 2011, p.82). Thus, it is crucial that someone’s imagery of the possible and ideal selves is both challenging and reachable (Dörnyei, 2011, p.84). For a teacher, this requires both presenting students with the opportunities to develop their possible and ideal selves, but also building their self-esteem in ways that allow the students to both stay motivated and set challenging, yet reachable, goals for their learning. To provide teachers with tools for this, Dörnyei introduced the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2011, p.85).

2.2.2 The L2 Motivational Self System

The model of the L2 Motivational Self System was constructed based on a survey on the topic of motivation with over 13,000 respondents. The data from the survey resulted in three motivational dimensions: the previously mentioned possible self, the ought-to L2 self, and the L2 learning experience. The ought-to self describes the abilities and attributes a student is expected to possess to avoid negative results, and the L2 learning experience is focused on the learning environment in which the student is expected to develop his/her abilities.

Although the internal expectations and motivation of the possible and ought-to selves can be highly beneficial for a student’s learning outcome, the learning environment and how

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teachers plan their teaching can have an even greater impact. Especially since it might be the lesson activities that show the students what they are capable of when it comes to learning or developing a language in the first place (Dörnyei, 2011, p.86).

Dörnyei summarizes some basic motivational strategies for students in a list consisting of 35 different suggestions. The strategies are divided into four subcategories:

creating basic motivational conditions, generating initial motivation, maintaining, and protecting motivation, and encouraging positive self-evaluation (Dörnyei, 2001, pp.137-144).

The subcategory creating basic motivational condition describes strategies for how to capture the students’ interests and create the most basic conditions for motivation to thrive.

It contains strategies such as “Take the students’ learning very seriously” and “Develop a personal relationship with your students” (Dörnyei, 2001, pp.137-138). The second subcategory generating initial motivation, promotes ways to build the students’ motivation and create, for example, an interest or an understanding of the usefulness of what is to be learned. Some strategies of the second subcategory are “promote the learners’ language- related values by presenting peer role models” and “promote the students’ awareness of the instrumental values associated with the knowledge of an L2” (Dörnyei, 2001, pp.139-140).

The third subcategory is called maintaining and protecting motivation and gives strategies meant for helping the students to keep their motivation up. It consists of advice such as

“make learning more stimulating and enjoyable by breaking the monotony of the classroom”

and “make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learners by enlisting them as active task participants” (Dörnyei, 2001, pp.141-143). The fourth and final subcategory, encouraging possible self-evaluation, describes how to further work with motivation and to encourage the possible self by using different kinds of evaluation. The evaluation strategies are, for example, “offer rewards in a motivational manner” and “use grades in a motivational manner, reducing as much as possible their demotivating impact” (Dörnyei, 2001, pp.143- 144).

2.3 Extramural English

The term extramural is a compound word of the Latin words for “outside” and “wall”, which added to the word English can be translated into “English outside the walls”. More precisely, it refers to the English which students meet outside the walls of their school. This refers to any kind of English, and any kind of learning of English, students are exposed to without being instructed (Sundqvist, 2009, p.24). Furthermore, the initiative to expose themselves to English ought to come from the students, but there does not need to be an intention of learning for something to be referred to as EE (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016, p.6-7). Along with globalization, the availability of sources of English has increased to such an extent that many students would say that they learn most of their English outside of school. Many might also

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argue that EE provides them with motivational values toward English as an important language and subject in school. This means that teachers today are facing the challenge of not being students’ main source of English as the L2 learning now takes place both in school and at home (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016, p.3-4).

The sources of EE are many, especially if students have access to the internet, and EE enables students to find both input and output in English, as well as possibilities to interact with others in English. Examples of EE are activities such as watching movies, TV-series, and/or Vlogs. Other activities are reading blogs or newspapers, playing video- or computer games, and following English speaking people on Instagram or Twitter (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016, p.7).

Although the importance of access to and participation in L2 communities have been recognized as highly beneficial for language acquisition, there is not much research on the relation between EE and school English (Higgins, 2009, p.401-402). However, according to Sundqvist (2009, p,i), there seems to be a positive correlation between the amount of exposure of EE and, for example, better vocabulary and oral proficiency.

2.3.1 Extramural English and the teaching of literature

EE comes with both advantages and disadvantages for students’ learning. Many students find most of their English material on the internet, which can be both beneficial and harmful for their language development. From one perspective, there is a lot of material available for learners with different levels of proficiency. However, the internet also comes with the possibility to find easier versions of otherwise long English texts, such as novels, and articles.

This is one of the possible causes of the difficulties many students have with reading and motivation. Instead of reading novels or advanced texts, students today have the resources to find easier material and thus do not necessarily challenge themselves to develop their reading skills (Papadima-Sophocleous, 2009, p.120).

2.3.2 Previous research on L2 motivation in relation to extramural English

Although upper secondary students are constantly surrounded by English outside of the classroom, there has been little research on the sociolinguistic contexts where students meet English outside of school. However, in a study on motivational strategies for students facing a lot of extramural English, Henry, Korp, Sundqvist, and Thorsen (2018, p.247) found beneficial strategies when it came to motivational classroom activities. These activities were content analyzed based on what tasks they consisted of and how the lessons were designed.

The analysis was performed in relation to Dörnyei’s taxonomy of motivational strategies.

Some of the activities that proved to be most successful were those involving authentic materials that were not originally designed for teaching. Other rewarding activities were, for example, those involving digital learning opportunities that give students the chance to be

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creative (Henry, Korp, Sundqvist & Thorsen, 2018, p. 247). More specifically, the results suggested that, when it came to focus and content, the five categories of content that were most frequently reported as motivational were popular culture, national cultures, intercultural content, everyday issues in the world in which the students live, and interests, experiences, and future plans (Henry, Korp, Sundqvist & Thorsen, 2018, pp. 256-257).

Furthermore, the element of EE itself has also proven to be motivational for students learning English. Sougari and Hovhannisyan (2013, p.130) found that students tended to see English as an important and big part of their lives and thus also considered it very important to learn English in school. Such results were also found by Sundqvist and Sylvén (2014, p.13), who described that young adults who played video-or computer games in English also found English as a subject interesting more frequent than those who did not play such games.

Sundqvist and Sylvén (2016, p.165) also described several other motivational strategies toward reading such as choosing novels on suitable levels of difficulty, using texts or novels connected to students’ interests, and involving students in the choice of literature.

If classrooms are connected to a Wi-Fi, there is also possibilities to motivate students by using fan fiction sites (Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2016, pp. 169-170).

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3. Methods

This section includes a presentation of the methods used to conduct this study as well as the material and the respondents (3.1-3.2). The last section presents a discussion of the limitations, validity, and reliability of this study (3.3).

3.1 Survey

3.1.1 Creation and administration

Part of this study is based on a survey which was distributed via email and posted in two Facebook groups for English teachers (Appendix 1). As stated by Jonsson (2007, p.198), surveys are useful for collecting a high amount of responses with the purpose to provide descriptive statistics and statistics which give quantities of information that can be generalized. Thus, using a survey was appropriate for this study to fulfill the aim of exploring the general experiences and attitudes of English teachers in lower and upper secondary schools. The study aimed to find a broader picture of the experiences of students’ motivation and attitudes toward reading than only qualitative interviews possibly could have provided.

Moreover, administrating a survey made sure that a higher number of teachers could partake in the study and thereby provide the study with more perspectives and perceptions of the situation.

As the research questions are focused on secondary level teachers, the inclusion criteria for participation in the survey was that all respondents had to have a teaching degree for secondary level education. The survey, which consisted of 22 questions, thus started with six background questions partially designed to identify respondents that did not fulfill the inclusion criteria. Moreover, the survey consisted of both closed and open-ended questions.

The closed questions were used in instances where the questions could be answered through premade, and short, alternatives while the open-ended questions were used when there was more information required from the respondents. According to Björkdahl Ordell (2007, pp.84-85), it is important to use open-ended questions when aiming to collect descriptive data. Since that was the case with this study exploring attitudes and experiences, the open- ended questions provided the respondents with possibilities to give more detailed and personal answers. It also meant that the responses were not limited to premade alternatives that were not reflective of the respondents’ truthful answers. Since the survey consisted of many open-ended questions, it took around 10-15 minutes to answer the whole survey, and several possible respondents may thus have chosen to withdraw their participation before finishing it as it required more time than a survey consisting of mainly multiple choice questions.

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To be able to reach teachers in different cities around Sweden, the survey was created online, through SoGoSurvey.com, and then distributed as a link. The choice of using SoGoSurvey.com was mainly based on the fact that it allowed the logic of the questions to vary depending on what the respondents answered, as that made it possible to ask follow-up questions to make sure that the inclusion criteria was fulfilled.

During the process of creating and administrating the survey, guidelines from the Swedish Research Council (Hermerén, 2011, p.39) were used. As it is of great importance that a researcher provides the respondents with all the needed information about both the study and what rights the respondents have while participating, all respondents were informed about the purpose of the study, what the data and the final research would be used for and that they were free to withdraw from the study at any time before the survey closed. This was done by giving all respondents the needed information on the welcome page of the survey (Appendix 2) and adding an obligatory question on if the respondent agreed to the terms and was willing to partake in the study. Moreover, the survey was carried out through a survey tool that allowed the respondents to withdraw from the study after submitting their response.

The language used for the questions and instructions of the survey was English but the respondents were free to use both English and/or Swedish when answering.

3.1.2 Respondents

A total of 100 English teachers were approached via email, after a manual search on English teachers at secondary schools in five Swedish cities. Three of the cities were chosen due to presenting a high number of secondary schools on their websites while two of the cities were chosen based on personal contacts. The survey was also distributed in the Facebook groups

“Nätverk för lärare i engelska” (Network for teachers in English) and “Engelsklärare 6-9”

(English teachers 6-9).Due to time limitations, the survey was open for four days and generated a total of 65 responses. Out of the 65 English teachers who answered the survey, five respondents were excluded, four of them because they did not have teaching degrees valid for secondary level education and one because he/she did not have a teaching degree at all. Therefore, the final number of respondents was 60. 56 respondents had teaching degrees from Swedish universities and four had teaching degrees from universities in other countries.

In terms of generalizability, the number of respondents is too low to draw any general conclusions and the results should thus be seen more as indications.

55 respondents were currently working as English teachers in Swedish schools, while the remaining had worked as English teachers in a Swedish secondary school within the last five years. In total, 13 respondents also had teaching degrees for primary school.

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Figure 1. Age of respondents. Figure 2. Teaching Experience.

As presented in Figure 1, the majority of the respondents were between 31-50 years old. Only two were under the age of 26, and only four were older than 60 years old. As seen in Figure 2, the respondents also represented a wide range of teaching experience with the lowest amount of work years being between 0 and 5, and the highest over 20 years.

3.2 Interviews

3.2.1 Semi-structured interviews

To complement the quantitative data from the survey, four semi-structured interviews were carried out. Although the open-ended questions in the survey could provide the study with descriptive data, that information was limited to however the respondents interpreted the questions or how much they had time to answer. Thus, the interviews were carried out as an attempt to go more into depth with some of the themes of this study. According to Kihlström (2007, pp.75-77) qualitative studies can provide answers to the questions “how?” and “why?”, and, as mentioned, complement surveys with more “in-depth” information. Qualitative interviews also enable the respondents to give answers in their own words rather than forming their answers based on preexisting formulations. That way, the responses are more likely to reflect the respondents’ own experiences and attitudes in a better way than preexisting answers in a survey would (Kihlström, 2007, p.48). However, due to the limitations of qualitative interviews, the data provided cannot provide the study with information that can be generalized.

The semi-structured interview (Appendix 3) was divided into three themes:

background, motivation toward reading and literature, and EE. There was a total of 16 main questions. Some main questions had follow-up questions to ensure well explained and detailed answers. In total, there were 28 follow-up questions, which were chosen depending on what the respondents answered to the main questions. Before starting the interviews, the respondents were given written information (Appendix 4) about the purpose, what the data was to be used for, and that they were free to resign from the study and end their participation at any time (The British Association of Applied Linguistics, 2016, p.5). All four respondents were also given a consent form in which they could confirm that they agreed to

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the terms, had been given the necessary information, and agreed to participate in the study (Appendix 5). The interview questions were written in English, but the respondents were free to use the language they felt the most comfortable with when answering.

3.2.2 Interview Participants

The semi-structured interviews were carried out with four respondents, all of them English teachers with teaching degrees valid for either lower or upper secondary school. The respondents were approached through personal contacts with the purpose to represent English teachers of different ages and different amounts of work experience. In this study, detailed information regarding the respondents’ identities is not needed in the results which is in line with the recommendations from the Swedish Research Council (2011, p.39) The respondents in the semi-structured interviews are therefore presented as “Teacher A”,

“Teacher B”, and so on.

Teacher A has been working as a teacher for 32 years and is in his/her fifties, Teacher B has been working as a teacher for ten years and is in his/her forties. Teacher C is in his/her thirties and has worked as a teacher for 13 years, and Teacher D is in his/her twenties and has worked as a teacher for almost two years. Teacher A, C, and D are all working at different upper secondary schools, while teacher B has previously worked at an upper secondary school and is now working in middle school. All four respondents have teaching degrees from Swedish universities.

3.3 Limitations of the study

As the purpose of this study was to explore how teachers in general perceive student motivation toward reading and how teachers work to motivate their students, the main method of this study was quantitative. By distributing a survey, more respondents could be reached and give a broad perspective of the research questions. As an attempt to reach teachers of different backgrounds, the survey was sent to 100 teachers from several cities and schools. It was also shared in two Facebook groups for lower and upper secondary school teachers, which allowed even more teachers to participate. However, due to the time limitations of the study, the number of respondents only reached 60. In other words, the results would have been more reliable with a higher number of respondents. The results would also have been more generalizable. Thus, the survey was complemented with interviews. The questions for both the survey and the interviews were formed based on the research questions.

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Except for contacting me via email, the respondents did not have the possibility to quickly ask for further explanations or clarifications of the questions. There was no time for a pilot study, instead the survey was sent to five teacher students to receive feedback on if there were any questions that needed clarification or could be improved. Despite this, there were later six respondents who replied that they did not understand survey question no.16 (Appendix 1). This affects the reliability of the study as there is a risk that other respondents have misunderstood the same questions but have chosen to answer anyway. Furthermore, as one of the survey questions started with a statement about previous research, there is a risk that respondents found the questions leading, and thus chose to agree with the statement because they did not want to disagree with research. However, the question was placed late in the survey to not affect the respondents’ answers in questions on similar topics.

The interviews were added to the study to complement the survey and to collect in depth answers and detailed explanations. However, the interviews had to be limited to around 30 minutes each in respect to the respondents having their busiest time of the year during the period in which the interviews took place. There were also a lot of questions to ask in that limited amount of time, which led to the fact that there was not enough time to go into depth in all the questions. This affected the study as the interview results could have been of higher quality if there would have been more time and/or less questions, not the least as the respondents might have felt less stressed to finish the interview.

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4. Analysis and results

This section includes a presentation of the results. The survey results are presented in subsection 4.1 while the interview results are presented in subsection 4.2.

4.1 Survey Results

To clarify the survey results, they are presented in subsections based on the different themes of the survey questions (4.1.1-4.1.6).

4.1.1 Students’ attitudes toward reading and working with literature

As can be seen in Figure 3, a great majority of the respondents reported that only some of their students were positive toward reading and working with literature. One of the respondents even said that none of his/her students were enthusiastic about reading. Only nine respondents replied that either most, or all, their students were positive toward reading.

Figure 3. Teachers’ experiences of their students’ attitudes toward reading.

When asked to further explain their students’ attitudes toward reading, 57 respondents answered. Out of the 57 responses, five mentioned a majority of the students being positive toward reading. Reasons for the positive attitudes were, for example, that the students were enthusiastic about reading because it challenges them, but also that they could choose one of the novels themselves.

(1) Generally the students are positive. They see it as a challenge. Some of them are reluctant at first, afraid that they won’t succeed. With help,

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scaffolding and strategies they find a way to manage, to get through the texts.

(2) Most are positive or very positive. I read two novels per term with each class and I usually choose one of the books and the students get to choose the other one freely. They like that

The respondents who described their students’ attitudes toward reading as negative gave examples as to how their students usually react. Reasons for the negative attitudes and reluctance seemed to be that the students usually find it difficult and/or boring to read, especially longer texts such as novels. Several respondents gave examples of this by adding that students often comment negatively on the length of the novel and that the first thing they ask about is the number of pages:

(3) There is generally a certain resistance toward working with literature, especially when I demand they read an entire book. Many students try to read short stories instead, or listen to audio books since they find this easier.

(4) They find it difficult to read a novel (even a short one). They rarely read a longer text outside of school. Books are definitely not on their to-do list... Sometimes it takes f o r e v e r for them to finish reading.

In four instances, the students were described as having negative attitudes before starting to read or in the very beginning of their readings. However, the students also seemed to change their minds while working their ways through their readings. According to the respondents, reasons for showing reluctance toward reading were either that their students initially thought of it as too challenging or boring:

(5) The initial reaction is mostly negative. Students tend to focus on the amount of pages. If it is a longer story, some students give up whereas others get more into it after a while. As some students barely read longer texts in Swedish, reading in English can be a struggle.

(6) Most students show a low interest before actually starting to read, but a lot of them change their minds after giving the novel a chance.

Usually, the students realize that reading isn’t necessarily as boring as they initially thought.

As suggested by the respondents in examples 5 and 6, the change of attitudes could be a result of the fact that the students realize either that the novel is better than expected, or that reading does not require as much effort as they thought.

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Finally, a large number of respondents explained that their students’ reactions toward reading were dependent on the assignments connected to whatever they were going to read.

There were several comments on the importance of adding contemporary features to the assignments, as well as the importance of introducing the novels in a positive manner. There were also several respondents stressing the fact that the reading needs to be connected to the students’ own lives and interests:

(7) It depends on how you present the subject of reading. If you manage to add contemporary features to their reading, it normally sparks interest. If they also are able to see similarities between the books they are reading and their everyday life, it also makes it easier and far more interesting.

(8) The students generally tend to be more interested in contemporary subjects to read about, such as news items, but are still quite easy to lure into historical literature using modern multi-modal memes, clips, movies, and cartoons These are used in order to put literature into a context, for them to get a better understanding of the importance of literature and its "social studies".

4.1.2 Motivation toward reading and working with literature

As can be seen in Figure 4, a great majority of the respondents reported that they work, at least to some extent, to motivate their students toward reading. Only one respondent that he/she only work a little to motivate his/her students.

Figure 4. Teachers’ experiences of their students’ attitudes toward reading.

A great majority of the respondents work to motivate their students. These results in relation to the previous results indicating that few students are motivated to read in school, suggest

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that the motivational aspects of teaching are very much needed and/or important for teachers to work with.

4.1.3 Motivational activities for reading and working with literature

When it comes to lesson activities for reading and working with literature, 58 respondents identified several types of activities that had proven to be successful to motivate their students. The responses were divided into eight categories based on what type of activity they belonged to. The results indicate, as shown in Table 1, that connecting reading and reading assignments to students’ own lives seemed to have worked the most successfully.

Table 1. Successful lesson activities for motivation toward reading. N=58

Type of Activity No.

Connect reading to other aspects of students’ lives 27

Motivated choices of literature 19

Online/Media tools 6

Prereading activities to prepare students for further assignments 5 Assignments in which the students cooperate with each other 4

Other 3

Clear and enthusiastic introductions 2

Keeping track of the readings by writing reading journals 2

As presented in Table 1, several lesson activities have, according to the respondents, proven to be successful when it comes to motivating the students before reading. The activity which was most frequently reported as successful when it comes to motivating students was to engage students through connecting reading and reading assignments to their interests and/or everyday lives. Many of the respondents agreed on the fact that it is crucial to do so, as their students’ experiences and interests make them who they are and thus also affect how they interpret the world around them, not the least when it comes to the literature they read.

Furthermore, it was also mentioned that it is important because school is supposed to reflect the society in which the students live. Teachers ought to prepare their students for the outside world to the best of their ability, and it should thus be natural to incorporate the world outside of school into the school when planning lesson activities. Thereby, the purpose of what the students are meant to do with their reading and lesson activities also becomes clearer.

The second category of activities that had proven to be successful, according to the respondents, said that it is important to make motivated choices of literature. The respondents did not agree on whether novels should be chosen by teachers or students, but rather on the fact that in whatever way the novels are chosen, the choice needs to be well motivated. In some groups, and for some teachers, the best decision might be to let the students choose their own novels while in other groups, and for other teachers, it works

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better when the teachers choose the novels by themselves. Furthermore, most of the respondents also stated that the choice of literature needs to be made based on what might interest the students and/or what might be possible to connect to other parts of the students’

lives.

Another category of activities that could be considered successful to some extent was to create reading assignments in which the students engage in online tools or media. Such activities were, for example, to incorporate ICT elements such as Global Read Aloud, Kahoot quizzes, and audio homework. Additionally, engaging students through online tools could also be done by, for example, having the students create a messenger chat between two characters of a novel and use the chat to present themes, events, or turning points of the story. Having the opportunity to watch movie adaptations of assigned novels was also reported as motivational to some extent.

Other activities that were reported to be successful for motivating students to read and work with literature were activities which prepare students for further reading assignments, such as analyzing novels or TV-shows before being expected to analyze novels, and also activities which let the students cooperate with each other. Such activities could, as exemplified by one of the respondents, be to have group discussions. Finally, from the category “other” there was only a few activities that had proven to be successful. The first one was to have the students take part in role playing. The respondent who answered this described how his/her students had been assigned to play the roles of Dr. Phil, Dr.

Frankenstein, and Frankenstein’s monster and then had to discuss important subjects and themes from the novel. The second activity involved the students writing an essay before reading novels, and then writing another one after having finished the novels. This activity was described to contextualize students’ learning process and explicitly show students how much they can learn and improve their language skills by reading.

4.1.4 Demotivational activities for reading and working with literature

In question 15, the respondents were asked to give examples of lesson activities they had used when working with reading and literature which had proven to be demotivational. In total, 38 respondents described activities that had proven to be demotivational, and 9 respondents answered by saying that they had no such experience. 3 respondents answered that they did not remember any examples of demotivational activities, and 8 respondents did not answer the question. In total, eight respondents answered that they at some point had not communicated a clear purpose as to why the students were going to read or how they were going to work with their assigned novels afterward. They expressed that the students need motivated and purposeful assignments when reading, as the students tend to ignore to read otherwise. One of the respondents explained this further by stating that the students find it

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easier to avoid reading if there are no connected assignments to go with it, but that the assignments also need to require more from the students than just summarizing what they read.

Another seven respondents replied that they had required the students to work with assignments that were too difficult for them, which had led to the students being demotivated toward the reading in general. Two of the respondents described that their students found writing assignments difficult when it came to analyzing literature, and that it thus is important to prepare the students more with similar prereading activities.

Four respondents answered that reading logs tend to be discouraging when it comes to motivating their students to read. According to one of the respondents, his/her students find reading logs very time consuming and boring, and thus rarely do them properly anyway.

The element of not structuring the reading unit enough had been a problem for three of the respondents. One respondent explained that it had been demotivating to just give his/her students the book and tell them to finish it within a certain amount of time, while another respondent stated that the students tend to be less motivated when all they know is that they are going to read.

One of the aspects that many respondents reported as demotivating for the students was to choose the wrong kind of book. Ten of the respondents answered that their choice of book had been unsuccessful due to either choosing books the students were not interested in, that the teacher was not enthusiastic about, or to choose the same book for all the students to read. Finally, among the remaining responses there were demotivational activities such as listening to audiobooks together in class, having the students read at home, and asking the students to summarize every chapter of a novel individually.

4.1.5 Extramural English and English in school

When it comes to the respondents’ experience of EE, it was apparent that most teachers believed that their students are the most exposed to English outside of school.

Figure 5. N=60 Teachers’ beliefs on where students are the most exposed to the English language.

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As presented in Figure 5, 85% of the respondents answered that they believe that their students meet most of their English outside of school, while 15% of the respondents think that their students are the most exposed to English in school. One teacher also added an explanation to his/her answer and stated that he/she believes that the students are exposed to written English in school and spoken English outside of school.

Considering that so many teachers believed that their students are exposed to more English outside of school, it is important to explore the question of what effects EE has had on their students’ English. The teachers were asked to describe what possible advantages and disadvantages they have experienced from students’ exposure to EE and 57 respondents answered. However, six respondents misunderstood the question about advantages and eight respondents could not think of a disadvantage. The responses are presented in Table 2 and has been sorted based on the number of times they were mentioned.

Table 2. Advantages and Disadvantages with EE.

Advantages with EE No. Disadvantages with EE No.

Speaking 22 Difficulties with adapting to

purpose

13

English in general 16 Inappropriate vocabulary 11

Vocabulary 15 None 9

Listening 11 Overestimation of skills 8

Dares to use English more 4 Limited vocabulary 6

Reading 4 Grammar 5

Writing 3 Spelling 5

More knowledge of the English-speaking world 2 Writing 4

Grammar 2 Reading 2

Learning English becomes more fun 2 Listening 1

Learning English becomes more interesting 1

As can be seen in Table 2, the respondents presented many advantages and disadvantages with EE in relation to the students’ learning of English. There was a total of 82 advantages with EE and 64 disadvantages. The most frequently mentioned advantage was that students develop their speaking skills, either by good pronunciation, by becoming more fluent in their speech, or by getting more used to speaking English. Moreover, 16 respondents replied that their students increase their language skills and did not provide further details as to which skills they were referring to. The third most frequently mentioned advantage was that EE was also believed to help students develop their vocabulary. However, it was also stated that the vocabulary development was restricted to the students’ fields of interest, which means that the vocabulary might be slightly limited. Another advantage of EE was, according to 11

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respondents, that the students seem to develop their listening skills while listening to and communicating in English in their spare time. Other advantages for the students’ overall learning of English were that they dare to use their English more (4), improved reading skills (4), improved writing skills (4), more knowledge of the English-speaking world (2), better grammar (2), that learning English in school becomes more fun (2), and finally that learning English becomes more interesting (1).

Furthermore, the respondents also gave examples of disadvantages that might come with the use of EE. The main disadvantages are that students seem to have more difficulties with adapting their language to different purposes and recipients (13) and in similar ways also use inappropriate vocabulary more often than students who are not exposed to EE as much. Examples of such inappropriate vocabulary are curse words and slang. In contrast to the mentioned disadvantages, nine respondents stated that they did not think there were disadvantages at all. Occurring in 8 different responses, the fourth most mentioned disadvantage for the students’ overall learning was that some students tend to overestimate their abilities or language skills, and thus react negatively toward English in school or give less of an effort in class. Other mentioned disadvantages with EE in relation to overall learning of English were limited vocabulary (6), poor grammar (5), spelling (5), writing skills (4), reading skills (2), and listening comprehension skills (1).

4.1.6 Extramural English and reading

As presented in Figure 6, quite a large majority (48 respondents) seems to think that EE is, in fact, something that needs to be taken into consideration, to some extent, while designing lessons on reading and literature. Furthermore, just a few respondents answered that they do not take EE into consideration at all, or that they do it rarely. Out of the 60 respondents who answered the survey, 59 answered the question.

Figure 6. The extent of taking EE into consideration when planning lesson activities.

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From the results in Figure 6, it is valid to assume that EE is an important element, to many teachers, when teaching English. This could be because of the previously shown results in Table 5, where the list of advantages with EE was quite long. Another possible reason is the fact that the respondents believed that students, as presented in Figure 5, are the most exposed to English outside of school and thus they want to connect their teaching with the students’ everyday lives.

Furthermore, 55 respondents continued by answering if and how they take EE into consideration when planning lesson activities for reading and working with literature. A total of 16 respondents answered that they could not give such an example or that they do not use/consider EE in any way, which of course shows inconsistency with the previous question.

According to some of the respondents, only a few students were interested in surrounding themselves with EE outside of school, and thus there was no point in working with it in class.

(11) When it comes to literature I don’t really take into consideration what they meet outside school at all. I have students from vastly different backgrounds with a wide range of English proficiency, so it would be quite impossible to do so.

In example (11), the respondent explains that factors such as proficiency and background also play a role when it comes to planning the lessons, and that he/she thus finds it difficult to adapt the teaching of literature to an entire group of students.

The 39 respondents who replied that they take EE into consideration in some way, state that they try to incorporate the students’ interests and/or everyday lives into the reading. This is done by comparisons and discussions about stories and the students’ lives, having the students write and read lore of online games, using social media as tools for assignments, and using relevant literature.

(12) School is supposed to be a reflection of the society in which they live, we’re supposed to prepare them for the “outside world” to the best of our ability, so I think it’s natural to incorporate their interests when planning topics. I also think it makes it easier to motivate them if topics relates to something they’re actually interested in or that is important to them, as social media, behavior online and relationships to friends and family.

Like the respondent in example (12), a lot of the respondents agree on the fact that schoolwork needs to reflect the students’ everyday lives and environment. Another 35 respondents agreed with the fact that a connection to the students’ lives outside of school can be highly valuable for making the students more interested in their schoolwork. After all, the

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sources of EE do not have to be complicated to integrate: many respondents said that they connect subjects from the students’ everyday lives by using themes and general interests such as sports, gaming, and/or movies. In other words, a little adaptation goes a long way.

As mentioned previously, there are theories suggesting that EE might affect students’

learning of English and the motivation toward English in school negatively (see 2.2). When asked whether they believed this to be accurate or not, 59 respondents answered. The respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed from 1-5, where 1 was “not at all” and 5 was “very much”.

Figure 7. Extramural English

As presented in Figure 7, many of the respondents agreed completely, or to some extent, with the fact that EE might affect students’ motivation toward English negatively, whereas few of the respondents disagreed completely or to some extent. Moreover, 37 of the respondents explained that they had experienced effects on their students’ motivation toward English in school in general because of EE. According to the respondents, the effects seemed to be both positive and negative as 18 respondents described negative effects, 16 described positive effects, and three respondents described both negative and positive effects on motivation because of EE. Twelve respondents had not experienced changes in motivation which they could relate to EE.

The respondents who replied that they had experienced negative effects from EE mentioned effects such as students’ attention span being affected negatively because EE contributing to students wanting to receive instant rewards when performing a task.

Additionally, it was also mentioned that it is hard for teachers to match the input students receive outside of school in terms of entertainment and enjoyment. Several of the respondents also described that their students get used to speaking and listening through, for

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example, gaming and thereby find the other areas of English, such as reading and writing, less enjoyable or interesting.

However, according to other respondents, EE was believed to have increased students’ motivation toward English in school. The most frequently described benefit of EE was the fact that it provided students with relevant and contextualized English material, and thus also displayed the importance of learning English.

4.2 Interview Results

This section includes a presentation of the interview results. The results are structured based on the two main themes of the interviews: motivation toward reading and literature (4.2.1) and Extramural English and motivation toward reading (4.2.2).

4.2.1 Motivation toward reading and literature

When discussing the students’ attitudes toward reading, all the respondents explained that it varied between different groups of students. Teachers A, B and D spoke of a wide range of attitudes surfacing in the groups, where some students were positive toward reading and some were negative. Usually, though, the negative attitudes have tended to be the loudest, which might also be the reason for the majority of the survey respondents stating that most of their students are negative toward reading. All respondents agreed that the negativity is easy to identify, as students ask for movie versions, ask about the number of pages, or explicitly show their disinterest by sighing and asking why they must read at all. Moreover, Teacher A and C described that it is a process to get the students over “the threshold” before they give reading a chance or admit that they enjoy it, which is something that was also presented in the survey responses as a small group of respondents replied that students tend to be negative in the beginning but then usually change their minds. Furthermore, Teacher C also added that the response from the students has tended to be more negative toward novels than toward short stories or shorter excerpts from novels. The resistance was explained in different ways. Teacher A stated that some of her students have found it difficult to make their way through longer texts, and that they are not used to it. In Teacher D’s case, the low interest was explained by the students’ feelings that teachers rarely choose novels which are interesting or related to their interests. In a previous study on motivation in relation to EE, the third and fourth most motivating focus area for students was, in fact, “everyday issues in the world in which the students live” and “interests, experiences, and future plans” (Henry, Korp, Sundqvist & Thorsen, 2018, pp.256-257). In other words, the students’ views are in line with previous research findings.

When asked how to motivate students toward reading, Teacher B also explained that the introduction of a subject or assignment had proven to be immensely important. If the

Motivation, Reading, and Extramural English: A study on if, and how, teachers of English work with motivation toward literature in relation to extramural English