University English Lessons to Enhance Students' Autonomy : Creating a Quiz of The Wizard of Oz

Abstract

It is said that motivation can be enhanced through satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as proposed by Deci and Ryan (1985, 2002). This study introduced three motivational strategies suggested by Dornyei (2001) to satisfy students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness: handing over various teaching roles and functions to learners, providing learners with multiple opportunities for success, and working together to meet a common goal. The participants were 31 second-year university students at a private college. In all, 15 lessons were conducted during three months. The participants, who had been divided into several groups, created a quiz based on the Wizard of Oz. They later gave a lesson using the quiz which they created. The research was conducted by analyzing the students' responses to questionnaires. Results show that creating a quiz based on the Wizard of Oz was enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding for the participating students. Moreover, the English lessons using the Wizard of Oz were enjoyable, challenging, confidence-building, and otherwise rewarding for them. Results of this study revealed that students learned English more positively and were satisfied with lessons using the Wizard of Oz by giving students positions of higher responsibility.