Motivation, proficiency and textbook differences in two upper secondary school English classes

Abstract

This thesis compares the motivation and English proficiency differences between two English classes at the upper secondary school level in Norway. One of the classes is a General Studies class with 25 students while the other is a Building and Construction class with 13 students. The two textbooks used in these classes are also compared and analyzed to see if the differences found correlate with any diversities in motivation and proficiency. Both classes answered an identical survey divided into two parts. The first part contains questions about motivation in school and the second part is an English proficiency test with grammatical questions. All participants answered the survey completely voluntarily and without any technical issues.

The results show that motivational differences between the classes do exist, but not as much as predicted. While there are some correlations between the type of class and how motivated the students are to learn English in school, I expected a far lower score on the motivational part of the survey for the Building and Construction class as opposed to the General Studies class. This was not the case, thus making the prediction of my main research question somewhat inaccurate. There were some differences in type of motivation between the classes, but the building and construction class was far more interested in learning English than I assumed. The grammar part also showed similar results; the General Studies class scored higher, but to a large extent. This may be because all the participants are straight out of middle school and have had close to similar English education up until this point. The survey was performed at the start of the school year, so the students have not yet worked with the whole textbook, and this may affect the results of the questions asked about what they want to learn more about in school. The comparison of the two textbooks lead to the discovery that the difference in expected English proficiency level between the two branches of study, general and vocational, was smaller than anticipated. Both textbooks are meant for Norwegian students who are generally proficient in English, so the books assume that the students have average English proficiency. It was very interesting to study these two classes and I learned a lot about motivation in the classroom and how I can make use of this experience when working as a teacher myself.