PROMOTING STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Abstract

Vocabulary knowledge is considered the core of language perception and production. Motivation is an indispensable element in the foreign language learning process. The present study is a qualitative one. It analyzed Saudi students' motivation toward learning vocabulary and the factors that affect involving the teacher's role. The researcher adopted descriptive and inferential analytical methods. The sample was selected randomly. The respondents of the research are 52 faculty members at Jazan University. They join varied colleges and are from multiple countries. They are male and female. The instrument used for this study was the questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. The findings of the study reveal that the majority of teachers at Jazan University agreed that the intrinsic motivation of students to learn English vocabulary is considered more than the average. Moreover, the conclusion indicates that there are various factors can affect students' motivation including family's support, students' attitude, syllabus gap, spelling, grammar, pronunciation, English language idioms, and Arabic speaking context. Additionally, the result shows that different teaching methods and techniques can enhance students' motivation in learning vocabulary, such as using suitable visual and audial aids and some applications, teachers' friendly manner, group work, connecting lexical items with the learners' culture, inserting fun activities in the classroom, using variety of learning strategies, encourage students to promote self-motivation, and using crossword puzzle exercises. However, some techniques can demotivate students such as teacher's attitudes and using English as the solely medium of instruction.