MOTIVATION AND CRITICAL READING IN EFL CLASSROOMS: A CASE OF ELT PREPARATORY STUDENTS

This study explores the ways in which Critical Reading (CR) practices can be adapted to traditional EFL reading lessons to increase student motivation. More specifically, this research aims at identifying the role of three main features of CR courses in increasing motivation, decreased external control, giving room for the students’ own realities in classroom procedures, and optimal arousal. The study was conducted with ELT preparatory year students. The findings point out that adapting these three features into EFL reading lessons enhances student motivation. However, the results also show that for students with high self-efficacy and high English proficiency, traditional reading lessons will lack the essential novelty of CR courses, which is mastering a new skill, within the adaptation. Thus, this study suggests that for students with high levels of English proficiency, provided that the former two features are supported through tasks designed to raise optimal arousal to compensate for the lack of novelty in traditional reading classroom, students’ intrinsic motivation will be increased for EFL reading lessons.