Students' Motivation in a Physical English Classroom and Sustaining Motivation when Transferring to Online Education

Abstract: This study aimed to investigate in what ways a group of Swedish teachers and students of English at upper secondary school can provide and maintain motivation for learning English when required to transfer their teaching from the physical classroom to online mode. Two questionnaires were answered by 46 upper secondary school students and eight English teachers. The questionnaires were supplemented with separate interviews in which six students and two teachers participated. The questionnaires were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis model (2006), while the data resulting from the interviews was analysed through a phenomenological approach inspired by Amedeo Giorgi’s four-phase phenomenological method described in Phenomenology and Psychology Research (1985). The result of the study showed that students are motivated to learn English if they have a functioning relationship with their teacher, if they have friends who motivate them, and if lessons vary in format. However, when transferred to online mode, motivation was difficult to sustain. The students’ primary source of motivation, in the form of physical- and social connections was lost. Both students and teachers experienced online education as time-consuming.