Investigating the Role of Short Stories in Enhancing Students’ Motivation. Case Study: Third Year Students at Mila University

Abstract

This study aims to find out more about the role of short stories in enhancing students’ motivation towards learning English. This research starts with a general introduction that sets the way for a moredetailed understanding of the idea of motivation, specifying its definition, theories, types, factors that affect motivation in foreign language, and its importance. Additionally, it demonstrates short stories as a source of motivation for students after giving a clearer picture about short stories’ definition, characteristics, as well as short stories in an EFL setting. Furthermore, in order to verify the hypothesis we set “ if EFL students read short stories, their motivation would be enhanced ” we conduct a descriptive study by using two questionnaires, one for (60) third year EFL students and one for (10) teachers of literature, oral and written expression at the departments of English, Mila University Centre. The findings obtained from teachers’ and students’ responses reveal that both have favorable perspectives towards the use of short stories, in which its use can help students to become more motivated and help them to learn more effectively. The study recommended that EFL students should be exposed to extra reading classes as a result of the findings.