Motivation: an exploratory Study of the preferences teenage students have regarding group work in the english as a foreign language classroom at “Ricardo Muñoz Chávez” Junior High School in the eighth level of Basic Education

Abstract

Since English language seems to be not very well received by teenage students, this research paper analyzes these students’ preferences towards group work as a motivational factor to learn English. This study was carried out with the participation of female learners in the eighth level at Ricardo Muñoz Chávez School. In order to obtain the results a survey, an interview, and observation techniques were applied. At the beginning of the investigation, students preferred to work in pairs or individually instead of working in groups. However, at the end of the examination, the findings reflected that putting students into groups motivated them to learn English because they helped each other, organized tasks, and felt self-confidence to speak the target language in front of some group classmates instead of the whole class. Thus, teachers must consider group work as a suitable learning strategy in order to avoid the adolescent students’ apathy towards English.