Multilayered Motivation of Becoming English Teachers in Thailand: Beyond Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Altruistic Reasons

Abstract

With attempts to understand the teacher shortage crisis, a plethora of research has explored pre-service teachers’ motivation to choose teacher education as a stepping stone for teaching as a career choice, but limited research has focused on English teachers.  This paper extends this line of research by investigating pre-service students’ motivation to choose teaching English as a career choice and exploring how teacher education facilitates the motivation to choose teaching.  A cross-sectional research design was used to collect the data, by interviewing 10 pre-service teachers from each year (Year 1-5).  The total number of participants was 50 pre-service teachers. The findings indicated the multilayered motivations in learning to become English teachers, which were beyond the intrinsic, extrinsic, and altruistic reasons. Also, the roles of teacher education in forming motivation to choose teaching English as a career choice is even more complicated than the literature points out. Implications for teacher education are discussed.