“English Literature and the importance of Motivation: A Theoretical and Practical Reflection on the Role of Motivation in Learning EFL literature.”

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the role of motivation as a key factor in matter of teaching and learning EFL literature trying to determine how students could be inspired to study and appreciate literature utilizing a programme centred on the student’s interests and attitudes. With these purposes, in the first theoretical part, the entire field of the analysis is to be discussed from the general idea of literature as a scholastic discipline to the concept of motivation. Firstly analysing the roles culture and literature, the paper explores the juxtaposition between language and literary education and their meeting point: literary education in a Foreign Language. Then, the analysis continues exploring the characteristics of the teaching process’ main protagonists, the instruments supporting literary education and the social environment surrounding it. The last section of this first part is totally dedicated to the cerebral energy at the basis of the learning process, motivation which is explored as the key factor enabling students to acquire new information. In the brief practical second part is provided an overview of the activities proposed during the questionnaire-based study conducted during the internship source of the current paper. On the basis of the study conducted it can be concluded that motivation is a factor connecting the student’s emotional and scholastic spheres which has to be taken into account so as to generate scholastic acquisition and life-long inspiration to love and enjoy literature in every period of the individual’s life.