Teacher Motivational Practice, Student Motivation, and Possible L2 Selves: An Examination in the Iranian EFL Context

The present study aims to provide observational evidence on the relationship between teachers' use of motivational strategies and students' motivated behavior in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context of Iran. To this end, 741 male learners of English from 26 secondary school classes taught by 17 teachers participated in the study. The teachers' use of motivational strategies and the students' motivated behavioral codes were measured using a classroom observation instrument originally developed by Guilloteaux and Dörnyei (2008) . Furthermore, the participating students completed a questionnaire that consisted of both situation‐specific and general‐motivational scales. Finally, a post hoc rating scale was employed to evaluate the teachers' overall motivational practice. The results showed that the teachers' motivational practice is significantly related to the students' motivated behavior. Further, while no differences were found between high‐motivation and low‐motivation learner groups in terms of their ideal second language (L2) selves, the low‐motivation group had stronger ought‐to L2 selves. The results will be discussed with reference to the socio‐educational context of Iran.