Andrew Tattersall & Sajad Shafiee
Abstract
This study examines the type of activities Cambodian ESL students engaged in outside the classroom, the length of time they spent on them, and the possible effects of teachers’ interest in tracking these activities on the students’ motivation. To fulfil these aims, five classes of male and female upper-intermediate ESL students (N = 71) at Australian Centre for Education (ACE), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, were asked to fill out an online questionnaire regarding the type and length of out-of-class language learning activities they were involved in at the outset of the course; to operationalize the teacher’s interest, the students were asked to report to the class in the form of two-minute presentations what they did outside the classroom pertinent to each of the four language skills, and highlight one thing they had learned through this activity. During the whole course, the teacher consistently demonstrated interest by asking them questions concerning their activities. At the end of the course, the students completed a follow-up questionnaire examining whether the teacher’s interest had affected the students’ out-of-class activities. The results obtained revealed that the type of out-of-class activities did not change noticeably, but the length of time they spent on the activities did; students reported doing more of such activities at the end of the experiment. Furthermore, it was found that the teacher’s interest did have a positive role in the students’ motivation. The paper also includes conclusions and implications of the study.
Keywords
ESL students; motivation; out-of-class activities; teacher’s interest
Citation (APA)
Tattersall, A., & Shafiee, S. (2024). Teacher’s interest in Cambodian ESL students’ out-of-class activities: Effects on students’ motivation. ELT Classroom Research Journal, 1(1), 15-46.
Link
https://eltcrj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ELTCRJ_v1i1-Tattersall-Shafiee.pdf
