Motivational dynamics in English classes at a Brazilian public school

• Autor(a) principal: Bambirra, Maria Raquel
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Lingüística Aplicada (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.letras.ufmg.br/index.php/rbla/article/view/10970
• topic: motivational dynamics; co-adaptation; soft-assembly

This paper seeks to discuss the interrelation between the motivation of an English teacher at a public federal high school in Brazil and that of her students under the dynamic systems perspective. Three teachers’ oral narratives and 14 students’ logbook entries were used to draw the analysis. The teacher’s descriptions and comments on her pedagogical practice were compared to the students’ impressions in an attempt to understand this English classroom-system motivational dynamics and self-organization processes, focusing on how three sub-systems – teacher, students and the context – co-adapt and soft-assemble. The results seem to confirm not only that the teacher’s and the students’ motivation are deeply interrelated but also that these three sub-systems interact organically and continually, attesting that the context is contingent.