EFL Learners’ Perceptions of English Language Teachers’ Implicit Motivating Agency

The role of language teachers is considered important in shaping their students’ motivation to learn a foreign language (L2). The motivational impact of a language teacher predominantly stems from the teacher's personality and behaviour, rather than from the direct use of explicit motivational strategies (Kálmán, 2023). Dörnyei (2001) also claimed that teachers act as key figures, or authorities, who affect the motivational quality of the learning process by providing mentoring, guidance, nurturance, support and limit setting” (p. 35). These point to the importance of teachers’ implicit roles in motivating their learners. Research on the implicit role of English language teachers in EFL motivation has not been conducted extensively in general, but especially not at all in the Hungarian higher education context. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perceptions of EFL learners in relation to their EFL teachers’ implicit motivating agency (i.e., the effect of a teacher’s personality, behaviour, and appearance on their L2 motivation). To explore such a research niche, this study adopts a qualitative research design with a semi-structured interview. The results based on data collected from 14 EFL learners, from different universities in Hungary, suggest that the teacher’s personality traits such as niceness, friendliness, support, encouragement, enthusiasm, empathy and cheerfulness can motivate the learners implicitly. Regarding the behaviour of the teacher, creating a warm atmosphere, asking students about their feelings, not behaving in a strict manner, playing games and telling jokes can have a motivational impact on the learners as well. In connection with EFL teachers’ appearance, students highlight the importance of dressing nicely and professionally and caring for personal grooming. The findings of this study may contribute to raising awareness of the importance of an EFL teacher’s personality, behaviour as well as appearance in higher education contexts.