Call for Articles: Language teacher motivation: A neglected area in L2 motivation research

Call for articles for a special issue in the

JOURNAL FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE LEARNING (JPLL)

Language teacher motivation: A neglected area in L2 motivation research

Editors:

Dávid Smid, University of Graz

Sarah Mercer, University of Graz

In language education, teachers remain an under-researched population in terms of their psychology more generally (for some exceptions, see Mercer & Gregersen, 2020; Mercer & Kostoulas, 2018; Sulis et al., 2023) and their motivation specifically (see, however, Csizér, 2020; Smid, 2022; Thompson, 2021). This special issue (SI) of the Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning aims at redressing the balance by building on the existing body of work to examine the motivation of teachers at different stages of their careers, working in a range of contexts, teaching diverse additional languages (ELT and LOTE), and including also language teacher educators. We see potential for investigating educators working in formal and informal language education contexts at all levels of education from primary through tertiary and adult education. While motivation itself has been conceptualized in many ways within applied linguistics and beyond (see, e.g., Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2021; Hiver et al., 2018; Kubanyiova, 2019; Watt et al., 2017), this SI is open to any theoretical lens for examining motivation within these populations. Please note: The SI will focus only on original empirical papers that have not been submitted elsewhere.

Possible topics can focus solely on language teacher or teacher educator motivation or may also include, but are not limited to, any combination of this and:

• Beliefs
• Attitudes
• Personality
• Identity
• Self
• Agency
• Self-regulation
• Emotions
• Wellbeing
• Engagement
• In relationship with learner motivation

Prospective authors are invited to send a 300-word (max.) abstract outlining their paper by 15 July, 2023 at the latest to the following email address: david.smid(at)uni-graz.at. Authors will be informed within 30 days about the decision for inclusion into this SI. However, please note: Acceptance of the abstract is only provisional, and the final decision rests on the final full submission. The editors reserve the right to reject any final drafts that do not meet the submission criteria.

The timeline for the SI is as follows:

1. Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 July, 2023
2. Feedback on acceptance/rejection of abstracts: 31 July, 2023
3. First draft of the articles to editors: 15 March, 2024
4. Reviews of first drafts to authors by: 30 June, 2024
5. Deadline for the submission of final version of the articles (following revisions): 15 October, 2024
6. Final version of complete SI submitted to publisher: 30 November, 2024

We are looking forward to reading your proposals. Please, share this call among your networks, and do get in touch if you have any questions.

Many thanks,
Dávid Smid & Sarah Mercer

References

Csizér, K. (2020). Az angoltanárok motivációja: Egy feltáró kutatás eredményei [The motivation of English teachers: Results of an exploratory study] (Unpublished Doctor of Science dissertation). Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.

Dörnyei, Z., & Ushioda, E. (2021). Teaching and researching motivation (3^rd ed.). Routledge.

Hiver, P., Kim, T. Y., & Kim, Y. (2018). Language teacher motivation. In S. Mercer, & A. Kostoulas (Eds.), Language teacher psychology (pp. 18–33). Multilingual Matters.

Kubanyiova, M. (2019). Language teacher motivation research: Its ends, means and future commitments. In M. Lamb, K. Csizér, A. Henry, & S. Ryan (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of motivation for language learning (pp. 389–407). Palgrave Macmillan.

Mercer, S., & Gregersen, T. (2020). Teacher wellbeing. Oxford University Press.

Mercer, S., & Kostoulas, A. (Eds.). (2018). Language teacher psychology. Multilingual Matters.

Smid, D. (2022). Toward an understanding of pre-service English teachers’ motivation: The case of Hungary. Akadémiai Kiadó. https://doi.org/10.1556/9789634548188

Sulis, G., Mercer, S., Babic, S., & Mairitsch, A. (2023). Language teacher wellbeing across the career span. Multilingual Matters.

Thompson, A. S. (2021). The role of context in language teachers’ self development and motivation: Perspectives from multilingual settings. Multilingual Matters.

Watt, H. M. G., Richardson, P. W., & Smith, K. (Eds.). (2017). Global perspectives on teacher motivation. Cambridge University Press.