Enhancing EFL Students’ Motivation to Speak through Short Silent Animated Films

Abstract

The success of language teaching and learning hinges upon a number of factors related to the learners. Some of which are psychological such as anxiety, self-confidence and motivation in that they may affect the process and why not shape it. Particularly, demotivation is of the serious hindrances to learning resulting more often than not in poor performance. Attempting to create solutions to students’ demotivation, exclusively regarding speaking, the present study suggests using short silent animated films (SSAF) in speaking sessions. It is, thus, hypothesized that the short silent animations, if implemented, could enhance first year EFL students’ motivation to speak. The research investigates the silent animations’ influence on students’ motivated behaviours, namely attention, participation, eager volunteering and verbal interaction. To test the hypothesis, the research was conducted on forty randomly selected first year EFL students at Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia University. To maintain a systematic, focused investigation, a quantitative research paradigm was adopted. The researcher used an experiment and a questionnaire. The first research tool was pre-experimental in nature and ran for eight sessions. Collecting data of this tool required the use of a selective combination of MOLT and COLT observation schemes. The complementary nineteen-item student questionnaire was administered with the aim to find out the students’ opinions on the short silent animated film technique, and whether it increased their motivation to speak. The findings showed that the students did better in experimental sessions than in non-experimental ones. They were more attentive, more engaged and more volunteering, generating more student talking time. The questionnaire revealed that the majority of the students maintain that short silent animated films increased their motivation to speak, and recommended the implementation of the technique to teach speaking.