The Charismatic Teacher: An Interview Study on the Motivating Agency of Charismatic Language Teachers in Hungarian Higher Education

Language teachers’ explicit motivational strategies and their motivational power have been thoroughly studied by a number of researchers in L2 motivation research; however, the personal qualities of language teachers have yet to be scrutinized as important sources in the generation of L2 motivation. One such personality trait is charisma. This study aims to investigate how university foreign language (FL) teachers and English language teacher trainees regard charisma as an implicit motivational tool. The research focuses on the qualities that make a FL teacher charismatic and on the motivational power of charismatic behavior. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight teachers and eight teacher trainees from a Hungarian university in order to explore the motivational impact of teacher charisma. Results show that subject knowledge, methodological knowledge, and positive character traits were found to be the most distinctive features of charismatic L2 teachers, who were also generally seen as outstanding motivators.