An investigation of students’ motivation problems toward learning efl writing skills in English language classroom: the cause of grade ten studentsat waka secondary school

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ motivation problems towards learning EFL writing skill at Waka secondary school .The study attempted to find out students’ motivation problems towards writing. To achieve the objectives of this research descriptive research design has been used. This helped the researcher to employ both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. The participants of the study were 6 teachers who were selected using purposive sampling and 75 students who were selected by simple random sampling. The six teachers were purposively selected because the researcher believed that they can provide enough and clear information. Also, students were sampled by using simple random sampling because the population seemed similar in many characteristics except in their gender. Data required for the study were collected through questionnaire, interview and textbook analysis. Among these, questionnaire and interview were principal tools, and were supplemented by textbook analysis. First, one-to-one interview was conducted with EFL teachers in the target school. Then, students were interviewed in the similar way. In order to provide supportive data, grade ten textbook was analyzed. The data from the above sources were synthesized and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, using interpretations and percentile, which in turn were supported by the responses of the selected participants. The results of the study revealed that students might lack motivation mainly due to the following possible reasons: wrong perception towards the importance of writing, poor knowledge of the English language, lack of goal orientation, lack of interest, wrong attitude towards the role of teachers, wrong attitude towards the writing tasks, teachers’ method of teaching and difference between learning materials and need of the ,learners. It was also found that most teachers were not using strategies of teaching writing appropriately. The major conclusions are students have poor language background, wrong perceptions towards the importance of writing skills, and inadequate motivation from the teachers and lack of appreciation . Based on the above mentioned findings and conclusions, appropriate recommendations have been forwarded