Research on motivation and motivational strategies in EFL teaching : A systematic literature review

Abstract: The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the research literature that has been done previously on the subject of motivation and motivational strategies in the EFL classroom. Furthermore, the gathered material will be compared and analyzed. The research questions are based on how motivation and motivational strategies have been defined by previous researchers and what the pedagogical implications are for the Swedish context related to the previous research. The material behind the study is eight articles that all talk about one or more of the four motivational strategies, intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental and integrative. The majority of the studies argue that the intrinsic motivational strategy is the most valuable, however they all agree that it takes more than one motivational strategy and other factors to build student motivation. These articles have been analyzed with a content analysis and thereafter the articles have been categorized.  The result of this study shows that the majority of the analyzed material mentions or recommends the intrinsic motivational strategy, how the motivation from within where a person does something because they simply want to do it is the most powerful sort of motivation. However, some of the previous researchers indicate that there are more factors involved in a student’s motivation then just one strategy, for example the relationship between a teacher and a student or a combination of different motivational strategies. The research and researchers are consistent with the fact that you need motivation and motivational strategies in the EFL classroom to increase learning.