Teacher’s personality and cultural identity impacting students’ motivation. Effective dialogue/discourse in the classroom

Abstract

Hewstone and colleagues (2005, p. 294) define personality as a set of individual differences which are affected by the development of an individual: values, attitudes, personal memories, social relationships, habits, and skills. Those values and skills can in turn have a tremendous impact on students’ motivation and generally, the whole process of second language learning. Out of many theories of personality available, the article focuses on presumably the most recognised, i.e. Eysenck’s theory based on the distinction of two dimensions: extraversion/introversion and neuroticism/stability, psychoticism/normality which are called superfactors (Eysenck, 1994). The taxonomy differentiates between four personality types: an extrovert and introvert in two variants: stable and unstable and can also be analysed in terms of the correlation between traits, personality types and superfactors. The article discusses the concept of a teacher’s personality and cultural identity and its potential impact on students’ motivation, which, in turn, may trigger the development of dialogue and classroom interactional competence (CIC). It also provides some evidence showcasing certain divergence between students’ perceptions and opinions on the most motivating traits of a teacher’s personality and the factual character features that may boost their CIC.