Student-Teachers’ Teaching Techniques: Actors in Pupils’ Extrinsic Motivation as They Speak

This article describes a research project we carried out in order to study the role of student-teachers’ teaching techniques as regards their pupils’ extrinsic motivation as they partake in communicative speaking activities at a public school in Tunja, Colombia. Data were gathered by means of field notes, focus groups and student-teachers’ documents. Findings revealed that student-teachers assume different roles regarding their teaching techniques depending on the stage of the class (presentation, practice, and production). The techniques, at the same time, constitute the nature of these roles. Explorers, keepers, and producers were the main roles that participants assumed when they involved their students in communicative speaking activities.

Este artículo describe un proyecto de investigación llevado a cabo para estudiar la función que tienen las técnicas de enseñanza empleadas por los docentes practicantes en la motivación extrínseca cuando sus estudiantes participan en actividades orales comunicativas, en un colegio público de Tunja (Colombia). Los datos se recolectaron por medio de notas de campo, grupos focales y los planes de clase de los futuros docentes. Los resultados revelaron que las técnicas de enseñanza empleadas por los practicantes tienen diferentes funciones dependiendo de la etapa de la clase (presentación, práctica o producción) en que se usen. Los principales papeles que los participantes adoptaron al involucrar a sus estudiantes en actividades orales comunicativas fueron: exploradores, cuidadores y productores.

Técnicas de enseñanza de los docentes practicantes: actores en la motivación extrínseca de los estudiantes a la hora de hablar

Leidy Tatiana Báez Dueñas*

Leidy Marcela Chacón Vargas**

Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

*leidytatis23@hotmail.com

**myleydy4@hotmail.com

This article was received on December 8, 2012, and accepted on July 1, 2013.

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Key words: Development of speaking skill, EFL student-teachers, extrinsic motivation, teaching techniques in EFL.

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Palabras clave: desarrollo de habilidad oral, docentes de inglés en formación, inglés como lengua extranjera, motivación extrínseca, técnicas de enseñanza del inglés.

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Introduction

Due to the fact that in Colombia the EFL teaching process is more demanding every day, analyzing the different factors that take place in the daily teaching practices for qualifying this process is a must. However, in a context like the student-teachers’ practicum, the issues related to teaching techniques, students’ extrinsic motivation and oral skills deserve special attention as they have not been deeply explored. So, it is highly important to analyze how these elements work together for enhancing teaching practices.

In that respect, our initial concern to develop this project emerged from our personal experiences as student-teachers in a public school in Tunja. In this context, students’ motivation to perform in English as a foreign language was extrinsic; their oral participation mainly depended on external or physical rewards, so student-teachers were moved to use them as a tool in the development of their pupils’ speaking skill. This was done with the purpose of implementing a communicative approach.

Bearing in mind this previous assertion, we feel it is crucial to bring up the constructs from interactionism, one of the EFL acquisition theories, as it emphasizes the importance of communicative contact between speakers, a statement supported by authors like Pica (1994) and Long (1985) when they assert that conversational interaction facilitates FL acquisition under certain conditions. This assertion should guide student-teachers to reflect on those techniques that take part in encouraging students as regards their speaking development.

In terms of such techniques, it was valuable to think about the activities implemented by student-teachers when conducting the English teaching and learning process. As these strategies appeared as sources of motivation, their relationship with students’ extrinsic motivation during their practice of oral skills in English required a wide exploration.

In that sense, reflecting on the global EFL context, we see that motivation is one of the factors that influences the extent to which people succeed or fail in any learning process. It is easy in language learning to claim that a learner will be more successful with a type of intrinsic motivation, but it has also been said that some individuals “have little capacity for internal motivation and must be guided and reinforced constantly. The use of incentives is based on the principle that learning occurs more effectively when the student experiences feelings of satisfaction” (Weller, 2005, “Internal Motivation is Longer Lasting,” para. 1).

Equally important, at the national level, La Ley General de Educación (Ministerio de Educación Nacional [MEN], 1994), states that communicative competence development in a foreign language has to start at the early educational levels. All the same, the curricular guidelines for teaching English (MEN, 2006) establish that language teaching has been deemed relevant in using the language as a key element of communication through interaction; so it demands the application of techniques in the foreign language teaching process that keeps students motivated to use English orally.

Unfortunately in our immediate context there is a lack of studies focusing on student-teachers in order for them to characterize their teaching techniques. One of the reasons why this situation has not been explored, as it should be, is because most of the time current research has been focused on students’ intrinsic motivation and the activities teachers use to promote it following the thought that, as indicated by Bruner (cited in Brown, 2000), “one of the most effective ways to help students think and learn is to free them from the control of rewards and punishments” (p. 165). So this project was focused on the counterpart of this issue. Then its main purpose was to analyze and characterize the role of student-teachers’ teaching techniques regarding their pupils’ extrinsic motivation as they partake in communicative speaking activities at a public school in Tunja.

From this situation, we realized the considerable responsibility student-teachers have in encouraging their students to speak in class because this is one of the most neglected skills in these settings, even though foreign language acquisition theories are based on communicative principles. In our immediate context, students felt excited to speak in class when their teachers provided them with rewards or positive feedback. Then, it shows that students do not necessarily use English in class just because they are intrinsically motivated. It means that the techniques used by the teacher can be one of the ways to cause the speaking skill to become a need for students. In that respect, Vilímec (2006, p. 33) claims that the “teacher’s main task will therefore be to make sure that the students know what to practice, and that they practice effectively, together with organizing the activities and checking while students are performing.” In that sense student-teachers’ techniques constitute an important factor concerning students’ motivation to learn English.

At the same time, this study also considered a population that was not a common source of research, perhaps because of its little experience in teaching. In that way, it was interesting to know how student-teachers as members of a new generation in the educational field put into practice their pedagogical knowledge for achieving the goals of English teaching based on the students’ extrinsic motivation.

Literature Review

Bearing in main the main objective of this study, one sees that this chapter provides theoretical considerations under which it was framed as well as our own conceptual constructs.

Appealing to the student-teacher concept, there is one that is closely related: pre-service teaching. This is understood by Schön (as cited in Wallace, 1991) as “the stage where beginning teachers obtain substantial on-campus coursework that they expect to transfer directly to the in-school practical setting where they begin to act as a teacher” (p. 13). It means that pre-service teachers are those prospective teachers who are putting into practice their knowledge in a real classroom environment after a complete teaching training program. Along with this concept, it is also meaningful to mention that novice teachers constitute a source of creativity, innovation, and motivation that spring up in the implementation of strategies geared to their students’ benefit.

This is related to the results of the study conducted by Gürbüz (2006) whose aim was to investigate student-teachers’ own perceptions of pre-service English language teachers’ strong and weak areas of language teaching practice in a Turkish context. In Gürbüz’s words, outcomes showed that student-teachers were very good at preparing visually attractive, colorful, and creative materials appealing to students’ needs and interests, and catering to all learning styles and all types of intelligences.

Secondly, they were able to create a positive and receptive learning atmosphere in class and to establish rapport with students. Their good interactional skills in the classroom were directly related to their motivation and enthusiasm in teaching. Although student-teachers themselves did not list motivation as their strength, it was easily observable in their creativity and effort regarding their materials and activities preparation. Finally, another point not mentioned by student-teachers was good lesson planning, which emerged as a strength in their teaching.

The other theoretical layer from those established in the research question is teaching techniques. These have been understood as the implementation of activities that teachers carry out in their classroom with their students. Bearing in mind the goals they set, educators work in specific areas of the teaching process. In that respect, we found Brown’s assertion useful (as cited in Gavilán, 2008). He claims that:

A teaching technique is a superordinate term to refer to various activities that either teachers or learners perform in the classroom since they include all tasks and activities. In addition, they are almost planned and deliberate, considering they are the product of a choice made by the teacher that can be addressed to the pedagogical units or components of a classroom session. (p. 165)

At the same time Crookes (2003, p. 144) states that, “an activity is a segment of classroom life. . . intended to cover all distinguishable behavioral segments in a classroom.” Following this line of thought, we feel it is clear that even though teachers’ planning includes the activities to be developed in the classroom, these intentions are influenced by how actions actually take place, depending on the stages of the class, as well as students’ characteristics (learning styles, type of motivation, interests, needs, etc.), among others.

We can say that teaching techniques acquire sense depending on how they are implemented by educators; additionally, the objective they pursue is based on their students’ needs. So, it implies the design and application of different activities that respond to both teachers’ use of strategies and the objectives of class segments.

Appealing to the literature, there is a study carried out by Gavilán (2008). Its outcomes gave us lights as to characterizing the nature of teaching techniques. The chief aim of this research was to describe the activities implemented by two first-semester English teachers and categorize them within the frame of language teaching techniques stated by Brown (2001): controlled, semi-controlled, and free within the context of a languages teaching program. The techniques used for data collection were based upon class observations, teachers’ logs, and a semi-structured interview.

Looking at the outcomes of this investigation, we can say that teaching techniques acquire sense depending on the control teachers place on them; additionally, as already mentioned, the objective they pursue is based on their students’ needs. So, it implies the designing and application of different activities that respond to both the teachers’ control and to the objectives of the class segments. At the same time, the accomplishment of such objectives is intrinsically related to the students’ abilities to face the challenges through the instructional segments of a class.

Extrinsic motivation is the following key concept we will discuss. It is important to say that in spite of the fact that intrinsic motivation is more valuable and permanent than the instrumental one, it has also been demonstrated that students need outside stimuli (grades, prizes, extra points, public recognition, etc.) as a guarantee for successful performance in classrooms. This aspect is reinforced by Akey (2006) when she claims that “in the educational setting, students need incentives to perform, so one of the real situations that teachers must face is to provide students with tangible rewards” (p. 5). At the same time, Deci (1972, p. 23) explains that “extrinsically motivated behaviors are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even a certain type of positive feedback.”

Those outcomes provided us with contributions in terms of understanding extrinsic motivation as a way of making students more confident when achieving the learning goals that an activity enhances in their learning process. Rewards cannot be enough to sustain the idea of an intrinsically motivated student, but they can be sufficient for maintaining extrinsically motivated students’ effort at any task as well as at any skill development.

To support the previous assertions, there is an exploration about different ways in which motivation has been conceived according to the development of teaching and learning approaches in psychology and in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages). It was conducted by Bastidas (2006) who called it “A Framework to Understanding Motivation in the TESOL Field.”

In this article the author presents an overview of the approaches used to contextualize motivation in psychology and apply it to TESOL. This study states that traditionally, motivation was studied in behavioral terms in the psychological context. In the TESOL field, two types of motivation were proposed: instrumental and integrative. In recent studies, the study of motivation from a cognitive perspective, where intrinsic and extrinsic orientations are its main constructs, has been proposed.

The light coming from this study lets us understand the value and the importance of the outer world in students’ learning. On the contrary, it must be a motivational channel through which intrinsic force surrounded by the extrinsic one results in more realistic, authentic and meaningful experiences in the EFL classroom.

The last spinal cord concept for this investigation was communicative speaking activities. Looking at the theory, Brown (1994, p. 245) stated that among the most important features in communicative language teaching (CLT), the following aspects are present or noteworthy: “Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed context.” It means that what turns an activity into a communicative one is the opportunity students have to express their thoughts and feelings as clearly and concretely as possible which leads them to gain confidence and achieve the communicative goals when facing any oral or written situation. Likewise, through communicative activities learners establish relationships with others where they negotiate meaning and assume different roles.

Considering the speaking skill and its connection with communicative activities, we found Littlewood’s taxonomy (1991, pp. 16-36) useful. He classified communicative activities into two further categories: functional activities and social interaction activities. In regard to the first one, the chief goal is to encourage students’ ability to use the language they know to achieve the goals of communication like solving problems or making decisions. Turning to the second one, the social interaction activities attempt to extend the pragmatic use of the language. It means that communication is mediated by the context in which its participants have to adapt their discourse in terms of how, when, where, and what to say.

Research Design

With the purpose of answering the question stated in this study, we followed the principles of qualitative research, defined by Merriam (as cited in Nunan, 1998, p. 77) as “an intensive, holistic, descriptive analysis of a single entity, phenomenon of social unit.” This approach was selected because the project was framed in a social environment where a specific situation was described, analyzed and characterized. Moreover, this research was descriptive as well as interpretative, guided by the case study approach. This methodology is defined in Yin’s terms (1984, p. 23) as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.” It also presented a detail account of the phenomenon under study and contains a description to collect information in order to interpret and construct new knowledge.

Setting and Participants

This research took place at a public school in Tunja, Colombia, where our participants were immersed, more specifically at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC). The participants in this investigation were tenth semester pre-service student-teachers in the Modern Languages Program at UPTC. This was a group of three people. The three pre-service teachers were particularly selected because their practicum took place at a public school where the two researchers had a good opportunity to get the data. Those student-teachers were in the last phase of their university formation, but also in the first stage of their professional life. It means that they possessed knowledge of different disciplines that are present in their program curriculum i.e. Pedagogical Projects, Communicative Projects, Didactics I and II, Applied Linguistics, Grammar, Phonetics, Literature, etc. In addition, they had previously had experiences in teaching English for about thirty sessions or classes throughout their eighth and ninth semesters.

Data Collection Instruments and Methodology

With the purpose of achieving the research objective of this investigation, four instruments were used: field notes, focus group (audio recorded meetings), student-teachers’ documents (lesson plans) and students’ interviews. Thirty observations of the student-teachers’ classes were conducted and recorded in a form (see Appendix A). This instrument was structured into two main parts. In the first one, the researchers wrote a detailed description of what happened in the classroom. In the second one, the information gathered in the first part was organized as well as connected with theory. Each participant was observed ten times for the purpose of achieving the following objectives: To identify the oral teaching techniques as well as the different extrinsic motivators (rewards, positive feedback) implemented by pre-service teachers as their students developed speaking activities.

Secondly we audio recorded four focus group sessions with the three participants along the development of the project. The chief discussion topics were: The type of activities that student-teachers conducted in class for students to talk; the extrinsic motivators used in class; the teaching sequence that was followed in class and the different topics and materials implemented (see Appendix B).

The student-teachers’ documents were the third instrument adopted. In this project the documents were the pre-service teachers’ lesson plans which participants had prepared for their classes. Thirty of those were taken for the analysis. The purpose was to see what types of activities the student-teachers designed and how those activities were related to their students’ extrinsic motivation as they developed their speaking skill.

At the same time, a semi-structured interview was applied to forty-five students to get their perceptions about the activities their teachers implemented in class and how those learners got involved in them (see Appendix C).

The methodology implemented for analyzing the data collected was based on grounded theory, Strauss and Corbin (1990). The cornerstone of this premise revolves around coding procedures, defined as the steps through which the information is divided, conceptualized and reintegrated in different ways. Based on that, once the information was gathered, the analysis process started. We made a detailed reading to study the primary instrument and to establish common issues, which were validated with the information provided by the secondary ones.

Our use of primary and secondary instruments entailed a data triangulation process. In this respect, it is important to say that two types of triangulation were used. The first type was methodological triangulation (Cohen, Manion, & Morris on, 2000), as previously explained, with the use of various instruments for data collection. The second one was investigator triangulation. In that sense, each piece of information collected through each single instrument was analyzed in an individual form. Then, the findings were analyzed to establish common patterns.

In addition, evidence was encoded for facilitating the presentation of the findings. In that respect, field notes were codified as (FN); group interviews as (GI); focus group as (FG); pre-service teachers’ documents as (PD) and video recordings as (VR). Furthermore, the participants were given fictitious names keeping in mind the ethical principles in research, for respecting the participants’ image and privacy. Additionally, the participants’ narratives were translated into English by the researchers.

Findings

Figure 1 summarizes the study’s emerging categories, which are presented in a metaphoric way; we have associated them with the role of a sower when following the three different stages of seed growth. The sower is the symbolic representation of student-teachers’ teaching techniques, in which the student-teachers assume different roles depending on the three main stages of growth (seed sowing, seed growth, and hay harvest). These, in turn, reflect the three main phases that student-teachers follow in their classes: presentation, practice, and production. These stages constitute the nature of the intensity or use of student-teachers’ teaching techniques in this investigation. Those categories are: Teaching Techniques: Explorers for Sowing the Seed, Teaching Activities: Keepers During Seed Growth, and Teaching Strategies: Producers at the Harvest.

Teaching Techniques: Explorers for Sowing the Seed

This category concerns the significance student-teachers’ teaching techniques play in the initial stage of a class. At this phase, teaching techniques appear as explorers of students’ context in order to activate their previous knowledge. These techniques seek to generate language in authentic situations. The purpose is to boost students’ interests and engage their emotions, curiosity, and attention as preliminary motivation to link the development of the class; this assertion is supported by Velandia (2008, p. 9) when she states that “the use of warm up activities increases students’ attention and helps us link the processes of the class.” In other words, motivate and engage students at the beginning of the lesson (Brown, 2001).

Here, students’ motivation is influenced by teaching techniques focused on external factors like personal information sharing and visual aids. Those techniques are framed within outer motivational issues because of their instrumental aim. In terms of personal information sharing, the teacher is the one who expected students to talk about their immediate context, appealing to activities such as questions, the use of realia, and discussions of one’s own experiences. In regard to this, Bailey (as cited in Brown, 1994, p. 156) says that “when external power wants the L2 learner to acquire the L2, there is an extrinsic influence.”

At the same time, the use of visual aids appears to help students talk at the presentation stage. This motivates students to focus on the topic of study, making connections and establishing relationships between what they see and their previous knowledge (schemata). In that respect, Brown (2007) stated that pictures can be used in many stages of the instructional process to introduce and motivate the study of new topics.

Then, personal information sharing and the use of visual aids constitute the two following subcategories under which the roles of student teachers’ teaching techniques at the initial stage are supported.

On Site Information: Nutrients Provider to Initiate Students’ Oral Participation

This subcategory describes how pre-service teachers’ teaching techniques, which involved the use of realia, personal questions, and discussions of experience at the presentation stage, functioned as students partook of communicative activities. It means that this type of activities arouses students’ interest to participate orally by means of short dialogues and conversations about the external world of learners.

In the reality of this study, the role of teaching techniques as on-site information nutrients providers in students’ oral performance was evident e.g. when the teachers started the class asking questions about their students’ own world and most of them raised their hand to give answers, evident in the following excerpt:

In one class, the teacher started asking us about the gifts that we have received on birthdays and Christmas and the whole class wanted to participate. (GI 3, Homero)

At the same time, the premise of this subcategory is supported by student-teachers. They claim that questioning their pupils about aspects close to them arouses their interest and bolsters their willingness to share experiences thus confirming Castrillón’s (2003, p. 63) ideas: “It is important to include learners’ life aspects in the process because these increase their interest and desire to participate.”

For instance, when the class starts I call students by their names and ask them: What is your father’s name? What is your favourite TV program? And aspects that are familiar for them in order to motivate and encourage them to talk in English. (FG 1, Mora)

We have to try to relate a common students’ issue with the grammar aspect that is going to be taught in order for students to understand and find it useful. (FG 3, Mora)

Visual Helpers for Making Students Recognize the Ground

This subcategory involves the role that visual aids, as a teaching technique, play in the presentation stage. It is related to the support given by activities with posters, pictures, flashcards, frieze, comic strips, puzzles, and so on, to help students understand the topic of the class and feel motivated to use English orally. These activities have an extrinsic component reflected on the materials presented which boosts pupils’ risk-taking attitude to speak. In regard to this, Luchini (2006, p. 129) affirms: “Visual stimuli are an economic and effective way of providing a topic of conversation without giving the learners words or phrases to manipulate.”

Based on data, we determined that pupils’ attention increased when they had contact with colorful visual resources. They felt excited, impressed, able to concentrate, willing to participate, and made themselves clear. In relation to this issue, student-teachers stated:

The purpose is to bring posters, images because nowadays students do not learn by just using the board. (FG 2, Mora)

I like to bring posters, memory charts, comic strips and all that material that catch their attention and I have realized that they participate more and make associations easily. (FG 1, Fresa)

Teaching Activities: Keepers During Seed Growth

This category refers to the roles assumed by the student-teachers’ teaching techniques at the practice stage. Those roles are sprinklers and energizers. Through these, pupils put into practice the input offered during the presentation stage; as Harmer (2007, p. 364) claims: “Practice is the space to set up activities that involved the application, exercise or reproduction of the language item to be taught.” Our characterization of the activities implemented at this stage resulted in the configuration of two main roles: Pupils’ World Representation: Sprinkler for Keeping Them Talking and Diverse Activities Inclusion: Energizer for Learners’ Oral Growth.

Pupils’ World Representation: Sprinkler for Keeping Them Talking

This subcategory represents the role that student-teachers adopt to bring their students’ world into the classroom, maintaining their oral participation. “If the teacher uses the environment that surrounds children’s lives to be expressed in English, young learners will see the foreign language as a means to express their experiences in their daily life” (Monsalve & Correal, 2006, p. 137). This role takes place when clear instructions, examples, and a safe atmosphere are provided in the practice stage. These constitute outer elements that support the desire to participate. In regard to the student-teachers’ voice, a common view is to contextualize students through both clear instructions and examples.

I always start with my own example to foster students’ examples sharing. (FG 7, Sandia)

It is a matter of motivating students to talk about familiar topics, daily situations in their contexts, to make they feel confident to develop the activities. (FG 7, Fresa)

Diverse Activities Inclusion: Energizer for Learners’ Oral Growth

This second role comes from the inclusion of different activities which resulted in the students’ oral skill improvement. This role constituted a tool for maintaining pupils motivated as they talked, similar to what happens with a plant when it is fertilized. At this point, a well-known notion takes places: “In variety there is enjoyment.” It refers to the energy students get when they are in contact with different strategies that impel them to speak. At the same time, there is the connection that they find between those techniques and their individual learning styles for learning. In that sense student-teachers say:

Listening exercises, videos and discussions or debates around these are important for keeping students’ attention; to sum up, materials and activities variation is needed. (FG 6, Mora)

An additional ingredient that complements this role as an energizer is the competition characterized by extrinsic rewards (extra marks, happy faces, grades, etc.) that move students to take part in oral activities. Looking at theory, Byrne (1984, p. 99) states, “We do not wish the students to become excessively competitive, but we want to recognize that competition provides a valuable force to a purposeful use of language.” This seems to relate to why pre-service teachers appeal to students’ extrinsic motivation while they are talking.

They love external motivators; these are one of the best ways to encourage them to speak in English. (FG 5, Mora)

The students are happier and try to participate more when they receive extra points, so they can improve their pronunciation and vocabulary. (FG 5, Sandia)

They get excited when I give them extra points for their participation and when these help them to improve their scores. (FG 4, Mora)

Teaching Strategies: Producers at the Harvest

This last category aims to define and characterize the role student-teachers’ teaching techniques have at the production stage. Here, these strategies represent the sower who has to collect the fruits. It means that the seed has grown and it is time for the harvest, as happens with students at the end of a class. At this point they are expected to put into practice what they have learnt with not so much dependence on the teacher.

In that respect, authors such as Cross (1992), Harmer (2007), Nunan (1991), and Woodward (2001) agree that the stage of production is the period of the class in which students are asked to use the stock of their linguistic knowledge creatively in less artificial situations or tasks. Behind this category there is one role.

Variety of Activities Implementation: Harvester of Uncontrolled Oral Performance

This subcategory revolves around the role that student-teachers’ teaching techniques have at the production stage in relation to the pupils’ oral production. Here, it works as a gatherer of evidences of what was gained by students in terms of their speaking ability enhancement. Considering that the production stage is more centered on the learner, student-teachers exert less control on their teaching techniques in order for pupils to complete them in a creative and free way. With the purpose of reaching this point, where students perform orally in a comfortable and confident atmosphere, it is necessary for these activities to include interaction, extrinsic motivators and an opportunity to bring reality into the classroom. In that sense, the following lines present the two main techniques applied by pre-service teachers at the last stage of a class.

In regard to this subcategory, pre-service teachers expressed that during the development of these activities they assumed a passive role in order to allow students to demonstrate their oral performance. It means that they did not interrupt their pupils’ oral participation so frequently in order to avoid causing them to lose confidence:

When I implement team work or peer work in the production stage of my class, I want my students to express themselves using what I teach them while they are in a comfortable atmosphere. (FG 4, Sandia)

My students like to demonstrate what they know in oral activities while they are in groups and when familiar topics are set. Furthermore I try to avoid interventions while they are talking, I prefer to provide them feedback at the end. (FG 2, Fresa)

Students get motivated to participate in oral activities when extra points and marks are given at the moment of their team (peer group) participation. They also feel more comfortable because me as the teacher is controlling or limiting their performance. (FG 6, Mora)

As the researchers in this study, we could perceive that when the activities offered students a clear view of their reality, spaces for interaction, and the inclusion of the competitive component, they stayed interested and confident while completing the activities.

This previous assertion let us state that, even though extrinsic motivation is not so favored by research, it is a powerful tool for guiding pupils in order to arouse their inner desire for learning a language in a particular context like this and—why not—for others too. In other words, students’ extrinsic motivation must not be considered as a negative factor against pupils’ language learning; on the contrary, it offers a chance to keep them working actively for developing not only speaking but the other communicative skills.

Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

Student-teachers’ teaching techniques became the extrinsic motivational root and, consequently, the influence behind the development of a particular skill like student speaking. In that sense, the first category was Teaching Techniques: Explorers for Sowing the Seed. This category represented the initial roles assumed by the sower, in this case student-teachers’ teaching techniques, to initiate the seed sowing process or the presentation stage. Under this assertion, two subcategories emerged: On Site Information: Nutrients Provider to Initiate Students’ Oral Participation and Visual Helpers for Making Students Recognize the Ground.

The second category established was Teaching Activities: Keepers During Seed Growth. Here, the coming two subcategories appeared as the roles assumed by the student-teachers’ teaching techniques along the practice stage: Pupils’ World Representation: Sprinkler for Keeping Them Talking and, Diverse Activities Inclusion: Energizer for Learners’ Oral Growth.

The last category: Teaching Strategies: Producers at the Harvest, symbolizes the roles of the teaching techniques at the production stage. In that respect, one role was identified: Variety of Activities Implementation: Harvester of Uncontrolled Oral Performance.

Accordingly, this study revealed the value of variety as one of the teaching techniques’ characteristics considering that learners are more willing to learn when they find fun, challenge, satisfaction, competition, and recognition when participating in those activities.

Findings in this study also let us set some implications. Further research is needed to delve more into the issue of how student-teachers update their pedagogical knowledge, contributing sources of change, innovation and improvement in the language teaching and learning profession. In the same vein, cooperating teachers at schools should take advantage of student-teachers’ teaching techniques as sources for the development of other communicative skills. It means that the perspectives proposed by the new generation of language teachers need to contribute to the educational field, so these should be implemented in classrooms. Creating this possibility can also favor the establishment of more cooperative relationships between pre-service teachers’ practices and in-service teachers’ experiences during the practicum.

Finally, this investigation can open a space for reshaping teaching models used at schools, as well as the training provided to student-teachers at universities. On the one hand, primary and secondary English teachers may adopt the methodologies and strategies implemented by pre-service teachers in their classrooms for the purpose of becoming more updated, qualifying their teaching, and increasing students’ motivation for learning. On the other hand, it should also imply for universities to include a provision for early research-teaching immersion experiences for young teachers. This practice would enhance those novice teachers’ autonomy to assess their own pedagogical interventions.

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About the Authors

Leidy Tatiana Báez Dueñas holds a B.A. in Modern Languages, Spanish and English, from Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC), Tunja. She currently works as a Spanish and English teacher at a private school in Tunja (Colombia). Her research interests include autonomy, academic writing, materials design, classroom interaction, and listening comprehension.

Leidy Marcela Chacón Vargas holds a B.A. in Modern Languages, Spanish-English, at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja. She is a full time English Teacher at Universidad de Boyacá and an active member of RETELE research group at UPTC. Her research interests include autonomous learning, language and technology, and materials design.

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Appendix A: Class Observation Form

Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación

Escuela de Idiomas

Research Project

Date:________________     Place:___________________         Grade:___________________

Student-teacher’s name:

Research Question: What is the role of EFL student-teachers’ teaching techniques on their pupils’ extrinsic motivation as they partake in communicative speaking activities at a public school in Tunja?

What is happening in reality?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Organizing information and providing details

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Appendix B: First Focus Group Agenda

Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación

Escuela de Idiomas

Research Project

Date:________________     Place:___________________         Grade:___________________

Research Question: What is the role of EFL student-teachers’ teaching techniques on their pupils’ extrinsic motivation as they partake in communicative speaking activities at a public school in Tunja?

Objective: To identify and go deeper into the type of activities that student-teachers conduct in class for students to talk.

Topics for discussion:

–                     Which are the objectives of the oral activities that you implemented in class?

–                     Describe the oral activities that you implement in class.

–                     What is your students’ reaction towards these activities?

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Appendix C: Interview*

Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación

Escuela de Idiomas

Research Project

Objective: To explore students’ perceptions of their extrinsic motivation when developing speaking activities in the EFL classroom.

Date:___________________

1.       When do you find a classroom topic interesting for you in the English class?

2.       To what extent do materials or resources raise your interest to speak in English?

3.       Describe the way you participate in the activities proposed for the English class.

4.       In which moment of the class do you feel more enthusiastic to participate orally? Why?

5.       When the teacher provides you with oral feedback, how do you feel?

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*The original interview was applied to students in Spanish as it is their mother tongue.

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