Motivating learners and teachers as researchers

This chapter explores how when learners as well as teachers are engaged in analysing their own classroom practices, the potential to sustain motivation is enhanced. Using an inclusive approach to creating shared understandings of ‘successful’ learning (the LOCIT process), learners and teachers research and reflect on their own teaching and learning in practical, co-constructed ways. This approach is built on the premise that classroom conditions are dynamic and that learning has to be ‘owned’ and understood by learners if progression and challenge are to impact on motivation. The chapter draws on studies in CLIL classrooms, where languages other than English are used as the medium for learning. However, the ideas and evidence presented could also be applied to language learning classrooms.