The Impact of the Learning Environment on Students’ Motivation in Upper Secondary School

Sammanfattning: The present study sets out to explore the impact Swedish upper secondary students' present learning environments have on their motivation to learn English as a second language. More specifically, we aim to investigate student opinions on how their learning situation and their teachers’ approach to leadership and pedagogy affects their motivation in L2 English. The study is performed with the third component of Dörnyei’s (2005) L2 Motivation Self-System, the L2 Learning Experience, as a theoretical point of departure. The L2 Learning Experience emphasizes the motives connected to the immediate learning environment through course-specific, teacher-specific, and group-specific aspects. A quantitative study including four qualitative questions was carried out by a self-report questionnaire to four different Swedish upper secondary schools. The results showed that the students’ learning environment was positive for their motivation across all schools. Moreover, it was found that students seem to consider the teacher’s role to be an important factor in their motivation and learning in L2. A teacher’s mood, spontaneity, and flexibility all seem to be influential aspects of the students’ motivation. This demonstrates the importance of making room for creating meaningful teaching situations and relationships with the students. We conclude that if the motivation was emphasized explicitly in the Swedish curriculum, then teachers would perhaps receive the time and the tools to achieve Skolverket’s goal of stimulating a lifelong desire to learn.