Based on a survey conducted in Japanese middle school English classes, this paper explores how different classroom approaches and teaching strategies affect student orientations, motivations and understanding of English. Simpson and Rosenholtz's (1986) definition of dimensionality of classroom constructs was applied to the English language classroom. As opposed to students of teachers employing unidimensional classroom constructs which focus primarily on grammar/translation skills necessary for entrance examination proficiency, students of teachers using multidimensional classroom constructs where attention is paid not only to emphasizing grammar/translation skills, but a going beyond to also include oral/aural English emphasis, claimed to understand more, rated their English ability higher, desired to take on more challenges in English, and revealed more motivation. Students of the latter group tended to develop more integrative (humanistic, personal) orientations (Gardner, & Lambert, 1972) towards English while the former group developed more instrumental (practical, utilitarian) orientations towards English.