Motivation and Its Role on Language Acquisition

8/6/2019 Motivation and Its Role on Language Acquisition

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Motivation and Its Role in Language Acquisition

Robert A. CoteSLAT 596Y

Dr. Linda WaughDecember 15, 2004


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Motivation represents one of the most appealing, yet complex, variables used to

explain individual differences in language learning (MacIntyre et al. 2001, p. 462).

These words succinctly describe the multifaceted issue that researchers, classroom

instructors and language learners themselves have faced since Gardner and Lambert

brought to light the complexities of motivation via their studies in the late 1950s. The

number of factors involved in motivating persons to acquire a foreign language has

increased tremendously during the past four decades and attempting to address all of

these components in one paper is impractical. The author will therefore attempt to present

a limited overview of motivation, supporting research from both inside and outside of the

classroom and views challenging its validity.

Prior to exploring motivation and its function in language acquisition, one must

first understand the term in its general sense. MacIntyre et al. defined motivation as an

attribute of the individual describing the psychological qualities underlying behavior with

respect to a particular task (2001, p. 463). This goal-directed behavior shows itself

through distinct actions of the motivated individual. Drnyei described this explicitly

when he wrote the following:

The motivated individual expends effort, is persistent and attentive to the task at

hand, has goals, desires and aspirations, enjoys the activity, experiences

reinforcement from success and disappointment from failure, makes attributions

concerning success and or failure, is aroused, and makes use of strategies to aid in

achieving goals (2003, p. 173).

This statement portrays motivation as primarily being internally driven; however, there

are also external forces that play a role. Gardner (1996) believed that motivation should


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be viewed as a hybrid concept, an internal attribute that is the result of an external force

(as cited in MacIntyre et al. 2001, p. 463). Although early motivation research addressed

human behaviors other than language learning, over the past 45 years, the significance of

its role in language acquisition has been realized.

Drnyei (2001) wrote, A great deal of empirical research during this period [the

1980s] was directed at measuring the association between various aspects of motivation

and L2 language achievement. The emerging body of research studies established

motivation as a principal determinant of second language acquisition (p. 43). The

research Drnyei is referring to was the work of Gardner, who defined motivation with

respect to language acquisition as the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the

goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language

(1985, p. 10). Gardner added, Individuals who are truly motivated not only strive to

learn the material but also seek out situations where they can obtain further practice

(1985, p. 50). The challenge is to examine what drives this motivation. The first area to

investigate is the brain and its processes.

In recent years, John Schumann has been examining second language acquisition

from a neurobiological perspective in order to integrate the findings of neuroscience with

those of linguistics (Drnyei 2001, p. 46). Schumanns theory, known as stimulus

appraisal, occurs in the brain along five dimensions: novelty, pleasantness, goal/need

significance, coping potential and self and social image (Drnyei 2001, p. 46). Though

this concept can pertain to any human action, it serves as the foundation for a language

learning theory Schumann calls mental foraging, or foraging for knowledge, which

engages the same neural systems as the ones used by organisms when foraging to feed or


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mate, and which is generated by an incentive motive and potentiated by the stimulus

appraisal system (Drnyei 2001, pp. 46-47). This notion may seem questionable at first,

but it is rooted in proven brain processes. Schumann clarified this when he wrote:

Learning and foraging may share the same neural mechanisms because both

processes involve translating an incentive motive or goal into relevant motor

activity in order to achieve said goal. In addition, both processes are guided

by dopamine, which serves to signal stimuli that are predictive of award, to

focus attention on those stimuli and to maintain goal-directed behavior by

providing go signals. Finally, the dopamine response results from stimulus

appraisals that evaluate the stimuli according to whether they are novel,

pleasant, and compatible with the individuals goals, coping potential, and

self and social image (2001, p. 23).

This is clear evidence of motivation being affected by chemical activity in the brain.

The most important and well-researched components of internally driven

motivation fall under the broad category of self-determination, which includes the

concepts of integrative, intrinsic and instrumental motivation. Gardner (1985) wrote, An

integrative orientation refers to that class of reasons that suggest that the individual is

learning a second language in order to learn about, interact with or become closer to the

second language community (p. 54). This fosters a feeling of belongingness to the target

language group as the language learner develops some sort of a psychological and

emotional identification to the native speaking community (Drnyei 2003, p. 5).

Drnyei expanded on this idea nearly 20 years after Gardner when he reported:

Integrative motivational orientation concerns a positive interpersonal/affective


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disposition toward the L2 group and the desire to interact with and even become

similar to valued members of that community. It implies an openness to, and a

respect for, other cultural groups and ways of life (2003, p. 5).

The question is how exactly does this integrative desire promote language learning? As

early as 1972, Gardner and Lambert proposed that An integrative and friendly outlook

towards the other group whose language is being learnt can differentially sensitize the

learner to the audio-lingual features of the language, making him more perceptive to

forms of pronunciation and accent (p. 134). Masgoret et al. stated that learning a

second language requires the adoption of word sounds, pronunciations, word orders, and

other behavioral and cognitive features that are part of another culture. Individuals who

want to identify with the other language group will be more motivated to learn the

language than individuals who do not (2003, p. 172). This explains why immigrants who

arrive in a country against their will because of war or political problems often do not

show the same rate of language acquisition as their fellow countrymen who voluntarily

left their homeland. However, even in negative situations like incarceration abroad, if the

desire to integrate with the surrounding people is strong enough, language acquisition

will occur.

Second language learners, wrote Stauble, will succeed to the degree that they

acculturate to the target language group if no formal instruction is attempted (as cited in

Richard-Amato, 1997, p. 63). An example of this is Kay Danes, an English-speaking

Australian incarcerated in Vientiane, Laos, who reported that most of her closest friends

were Thai, Lao or Hmong speakers with whom she developed a feeling of community

and belonging (personal communication, October 10, 2003). Through interactions with


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members of these target languages, Danes became an integral part of the larger non-

English speaking prison population, and subsequently, she learned their languages. This

was probably the most important factor aiding her language acquisition. Baker and

MacIntyre believed that mastery of a second language involves, to some degree, taking

on the identity and culture of the target language (2000, p. 318). Danes felt she reached

the point where she was no longer an English-speaking Australian. By the end of the

year spent inside Ponthong prison, she stated, I had almost forgotten how to speak

English because my mind was undergoing some changes. Basically I think I was losing

my national identity (personal communication, Oct. 10, 2003). This seems difficult to

comprehend. How could a person who had spent more than 30 years of her life speaking

one language claim that within 12 months of being incarcerated, she was not only

forgetting her native language, but the cultural identity associated with it as well?

According to Gardner, this is a possibility in extreme cases where integrativeness

involves complete identification with the community and possibly even withdrawal from

ones own group (2001, p. 12). Thorne attributed such behavior to ones belief that

the language of the speakers in the environment is considered far more important than the

native language for socialization reasons. In reality, the second language begins to

replace the first. Simply stated, the languages of the people in Danes surroundings were

more important to her than her native language. Apparently, even Danes fellow prisoners

were aware of her transformation. She wrote:

Actually in the prison, it was quite bizarre. I would sit and listen to the

women speaking in Lao and Thai and I could understand the gist of what

they were saying even though I couldnt understand all. It became


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uncanny...that they would be talking and I would interject with a

comment...like in affirmation...or yeah, and what about this? The women

would look at me and pause for a moment and then laugh and say...you

turning into Lao people now, Kay (personal communication, Oct. 10,

2003).

This is an extreme case of successful integrative motivation in the real world, but similar

accommodations must be made by language learners who are only exposed to target

languages in the classroom.

The integratively motivated student, wrote Masgoret et al., is one who is

motivated to learn the second language, has an openness to identification with the other

language community, and has favorable attitudes toward the language situation (2003, p.

174). But classroom students have to embrace the target language on a much deeper

level. Gardner and Lambert (1972) wrote:

The acquisition of a new language involves much more than mere

acquisition of a new set of verbal habits. The language student must be

willing to adopt appropriate features of behavior, which characterize

members of another linguistic community. The words, grammatical

patterns, mode of pronunciation, and the sounds themselves should have a

significance for the learner that goes beyond simple translations or

equivalences given by a teacher, grammar book, or dictionary (p. 14).

Various research studies have supported these views. Archibald and Libben (1995)

reported, Gardner and Lambert (1959) studied English speakers learning French in

Quebec and argued that integrative motivation led to greater success in second language


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learning (p. 318). Bialystok and Hakuta (1994) attributed the success of these English

speakers to their interest in the French language and culture and the desire to become

part of the community (p. 137). Gardner and Lamberts early research on English

speaking students learning French in 1960 Connecticut determined the strong motivation

to learn French seems to stem from the students integrative orientations towards the study

of the language (1972, p. 36). Later studies by Gardner, Lalonde and Moorcroft (1985)

revealed that using an English/French paired associates language paradigm, the rate of

learning French nouns was faster for students with favorable attitudes and motivation as

compared with those with less favorable ones (as cited in Gardner and MacIntyre, 1995,

p. 209). Gardner also reported that Native Americans learning English demonstrated

integrative motivation when they reported viewing learning English as valuable in order

to become truly part of the American culture (1985, p. 50).

Additional support comes from Meara and Skehan (1989) who presented several

studies relating motivational characteristics to classroom behavior and acquisitional

processes (p. 57). Meara and Skehan also cited research by Glicksman (1976) that showed

that students classified as having integrative orientations to language study volunteered

more frequently in class, gave more correct answers, and received more positive

reinforcement (1989, p. 57). Meara and Skehan also wrote, A specifically integrative

motive was involved in a study by Kaplan and Shand (1984) who argue that such an

orientation is related to systematic patterns of error detection, which could well have

implications for error correction and subsequent language development (1989, p. 57).

Skehan also wrote, An integrative orientation is associated with an elaborative

simplification strategy, i.e. hypothesis formation about the target language and a


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willingness to restructure the linguistic system. Meisel (1980) proposes that this strategy

is associated with greater progress (1989, p. 58). Clearly, integrative motivation plays as

significant a role in the language-learning classroom as it does in the real world. Gardner

and Lambert (1972) supported this when they wrote:

We find that an integrative and friendly outlook toward the other group whose

language is being learned can differentially synthesize the learner to the audio-

lingual features of the language, making him more perceptive to form of

pronunciation and accent (p. 134).

Understandably, it helps if the student is learning the target language in that environment

as opposed to only in the classroom.

Instrumental motivation is the next major type of self-determined motivation.

Gardner wrote that persons who acquire languages through instrumental motivation are

seeking a goal that doesnt seem to involve any identification or feeling of closeness

with the other language group, but instead focus on a more practical purpose [that]

learning the language would serve for the individual (2001, p. 10). Such motivation

could be considered by some to be learning a target language simply to get ahead in

society. Gardner and Lambert wrote, a person prepares to learn a code in order to

derive benefits from a non-interpersonal sort and their language skills develop as a

desire to gain social recognition or economic advantages through knowledge of a

foreign language (1972, p. 14).

A clear example of such a case is Armando Rodriguez, a Mexican-born

immigrant who has lived in Los Angeles, California, for the past 20 years. Rodriguez, a

native Spanish-speaker, did not pick-up English in the U.S. as would be expected.


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Surprisingly, he became fluent in Hebrew. Silverstein (1999), who interviewed

Rodriguez, reported, After getting a job as a restaurant dishwasher and kitchen assistant,

Rodriguez quickly absorbed new words and expressions by chatting with coworkers and

customers. He picked up so much [Hebrew] that he never needed to enroll in a formal

language class (p. 1). One would assume that Rodriguezs Hebrew is rudimentary at

best; however, his boss, Felix Wizgan, claimed, He [Rodriguez] speaks Hebrew like an

Israeli (Silverstein, 1999, p. 1). Silverstein, who is not a linguist, psychologist or

educator, credited Armandos financial needs as the force driving his language success

when he stated, Picking up a few words in a foreign language, or in exceptional cases,

advanced conversational skills, sometimes is a way to get ahead economically.

Rodriguez, for instance, worked his way up from dishwasher to manager because he

became fluent in Hebrew (1999, p. 1). This may have played a motivational role by

encouraging Rodriguez to remain gainfully employed by continuously practicing and thus

improving his Hebrew, but it can hardly be considered the sole cause for his acquisition

of Hebrew.

Another case of economically driven language learning is that of Miriam Wenger,

a Polish woman of the Jewish faith who was 17 when the Russian army liberated her

small town in eastern Poland from the Germans in 1944. To make money to survive, her

mother would bake cakes and bread and send Miriam into the streets to sell the food to

the Russian soldiers from 6 a.m. until evening. Miriam stated, It only took me seven

months to become very good at speaking Russian. When you deal with soldiers all day

every day selling and arguing, you learn fast (personal communication, October 31,

2003). Miriam realized that learning to communicate in Russian would have positive


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effects on her life. Norris-Holt described Miriams experience perfectly when she wrote,

Instrumental motivation underlies the goal to gain some social or economic reward

through L2 achievement, thus referring to a more functional reason for language

learning (2001, p. 1). Gardner and Lambert described Miriams behavior when they

wrote that instrumentally motivated individuals are interested mainly in using the

cultural group and their language as an instrument of personal satisfaction, with few signs

of an interest in the other people per se (1972, p. 15).

Such motivation would be exaggerated in situations where ones survival is the

ultimate goal. For Kay Danes, the target language was the key to survival. It was

important for her to learn Lao not only for her own welfare, but also for those with whom

she lived. Danes wrote:

If you wanted to survive, or to be understood, you had to submerge

yourself fully into the culture and language or you would never

understand fully what was expected of you, how to follow the

regulations...how to negotiate with the guards in order to attempt to build

a rapport so that they would not look on you so dishonorably, how to

shout out to the police at night when another prisoner was dying.

(personal communication, Oct. 10, 2003)

Learning another language in prison ensured the ultimate goal, extending human life.

Drnyei believed actions in such situations are carried out to achieve some instrumental

end, such as earning a reward or avoiding a punishment (2003, p. 39) Warren Fellows,

an Australian jailed in Thailand concurred with the notion of the importance of learning

the target language to be accepted in order to make it through each day. He wrote, To


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win the trust and respect of the Thai prisoners, I had to learn their language as best I

could (1998, p. 76). In both cases, the desire to survive provided the motivation needed

to learn a new language. This is further supported by Baker and MacIntyres belief that

motivation is the driving force that initiates learning in the first place and sustains

learning when the situation becomes difficult (2000, p. 317). Danes and Fellows

success at language learning in such a harsh environment can be attributed by Khanna

and Agnihotri (1984) to the idea that in settings where there is an urgency about

mastering a second language for utilitarian ends, it is the instrumental motivation which

is more effective (p. 80). These two situations clearly support this assumption.

Instrumental motivation has also been found to play an important role in the

classroom. Gardner and MacIntyre (1995) wrote, Instrumentally motivated students

studied longer than non-instrumentally motivated students when there was an opportunity

to profit from learning (p. 207). This behavior also occurs in the foreign language

classroom. Sawhney (1998) examined the effects of instrumental motivation on

university students learning German in India. She reported the following:

Reasons such as getting a good job, doing international business, reading novels,

interacting with Germans and making good friends with them indicate that the

students were basically interested in learning German for economic gain, prestige

and social recognition (1998, p. 128).

Gardner and Lamberts early studies in Quebec revealed successful learning of French by

English speaking students who focused on obtaining language credit and getting job

promotions (Bialystok and Hakuta 1994, p. 137). Gardners research on Native American

students revealed an instrumental orientation, which referred to the economic and


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practical advantages of learning English (1985, p. 51). In a study by Garner and Lambert

(1972) of Tagolog speaking Philippinos, it was found that students who approach the

study of English with an instrumental outlook are clearly more successful in developing

proficiency in the language than are those who fail to adopt this orientation (p. 130).

These students realized the importance of English in their lives. Gardner and Lambert

added, Apparently, when there is a vital need to master a second language, the

instrumental approach is very effective (1972, p. 130).

Other studies were conducted more recently in Hungary. Drnyei and Clment

(2001) examined nearly 5,000 Hungarian teenage boys and girls, ages 13 and 14, using

an attitude/motivation survey to determine what encourages them to study any of five

particular languages: English (British or American), German, Russian, French or Italian.

Traditionally, English and German have been associated with financial success, Russian

with occupation, French with aristocracy, and Italian with summer vacation (Drnyei and

Clment 2001, p. 402). The results were quite surprising. Factors associated with the

pragmatic, instrumental values of knowing a world language placed Russian in first

place by far, based on the teenagers affinity towards Russian pop music, magazines, TV

programs and films (Drnyei and Clment 2001, p. 407-408) which certainly does not

encourage the need for formal classroom foreign language instruction. The results

concerning feelings of integrativeness were even more interesting. Drnyei and Clment

described these students as having a general positive outlook on the L2 and its culture,

to the extent that learners scoring high on this factor would like to become similar to the

L2 speakers (2001, p. 409). In this case, English, particularly American English, greatly

surpassed all the other languages. The top three factors were the Hungarians attraction to


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Americans, their desires to be like Americans, and their wishes to travel to the United

States (Drnyei and Clment, 2001, p. 408). Unfortunately, this study has some major

flaws. First of all, the maturity level of the subjects is questionable. Perhaps older

students should be surveyed, or the same students questioned as part of a longitudinal

study as they age. A more pressing concern is that the survey appears to be more of a

measure of attitude towards different foreign languages, not motivation to learn them.

Additionally, the authors failed to mention the students present level of foreign language

competence or success in the foreign language classroom. Considering the amount of

time spent on conducting this research, it would appear that the researchers neglected to

examine all the resourceful data that was created.

Intrinsic motivation is the last significant variety of self-determined motivation

that this paper will address. It is defined by Deci and Ryan as being related to basic

human needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Intrinsic motivation activities

are those that the learner engages in for their own sake because of their value, interest and

challenge (as cited in Walqui 2000, p. 4). Dornyei expanded on this to include

motivation to engage in an activity because that activity is enjoyable and satisfying to

do (2003, p. 38). Such behavior appears to be very important in the language classroom.

Noels (2001) wrote, Intrinsic orientations refer to reasons for L2 learning that are

derived from ones inherent pleasure and interest in the activityand the spontaneous

satisfaction that is associated with it (p. 45). Basically, the more one enjoys learning the

target language, the more successful they are at it, and the better they feel about the task.

Deci and Ryan (1985) supported this when they wrote, Being intrinsically motivated to

learn improves the quality of learning and that those conditions that are autonomy


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supporting and informational will promote more effective learning as well as enhanced

intrinsic motivation and self-esteem (p. 256).

As much as internal feelings and desires drive language acquisition, they only

account for part of the motivational scenario. According to Drnyei (2003), there are

sociocultural roots of learning and cognition in general that stem from the sociocultural

environment rather than from the individual (p. 45). The present challenge is that

applied linguists need to understand better how the social contexts surrounding language

acquisition affect the learning process (Drnyei 2003, p. 45). This portion of the paper

will explore motivation from a socio-educational perspective.

Gardners socio-educational model, wrote MacIntyre et al. (2001. p. 462),

proposes that motivation is based in large part on inter-group attitudes and attraction to

the target language and culture. Gardner himself proposed that the acquisition of a

second language is a true social psychological phenomenon in that it is concerned with

the development of communication skills between an individual and members of another

cultural community (Gardner and Tremblay 1998, p. 31). According to Gardner (1985),

motivation is a central concept of the socio-educational model, and it has a social

dimension that reflects the individuals reactions to other language communities (p. 168).

That is, motivation to learn a second language is influenced by group related and context

related attitudes (Gardner 1985, p. 168). But people have to mentally and physically

engage themselves in the target language and culture to be successful language learners.

Regarding work by Clment in the 1980s, Noels stated, In his socio-contextual model

of L2 motivation, he maintains that the quality and frequency of contact with members of

the L2 group will influence self-confidence, motivation, and ultimately language


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proficiency (p. 57). Unfortunately, this is something supporters of bilingual education

[how it is presented in much of the United States] have yet to realize. Drnyei (2003)

wrote, While an L2 is a learnable school subject in that discreet elements of the

communication code can be taught explicitly, it is also socially and culturally bound,

which makes language learning a deeply social event that requires a wide range of

elements of the L2 culture (p. 4). Who is better than a target language speaking

classroom instructor to provide this service, especially with respect to foreign language

learning? Since language serves the social function of establishing and maintaining

communication between individuals, it could explain how people come to learn new

languages (Bialystok and Hakuta 1994, p. 134). Forcing people to use a target language

may be one of the best ways to aid them in target language acquisition. Though

somewhat harsh, Gardner and Lambert (1972) stated, It seems that when the social

setting demands it, people master a second language no matter what (p. 2).

To demonstrate how powerful motivation can be, it is prudent to introduce

situations in which motivation was so strong that language learning occurred when it was

not to be expected. Meara and Skehan (1989) wrote, Corders phrase, Given

motivation, anyone can learn a language brings out the importance of motivation and the

way it can overcome unfavourable circumstances (p. 49). Such a case involved a

schizophrenic named Louis Wolfson who hated and feared his mother. In particular,

wrote Gass and Selinker (2001), he hated his mothers voice and hence, her native

language, American English. To escape this pain, he learned other languages, primarily

Hebrew, German, Russian and French (the language in which he wrote his story) (p.


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352). Silverstein reported the following story about an African-American miner who

became fluent in Serbian:

Publisher William Jovanovich, in his 1998 biography, tells of how as a young

boy he was surprised to see his Tata [Papa] launch into a conversation in

Serbian with an elderly black man in Denver. Jovanovichs Tata explained that

the black man had worked with us Montenegrins in a coal mine...and nobody

spoke English. He learned our language in self-defense (1999, p. 1).

In the first case, mental instability and hatred encouraged language learning, and in the

second, it was a threatening work environment. More research in the area of language

acquisition under duress needs to be executed.

With so many studies indicating the importance of motivation in language

learning, what is being done in a pedagogical sense? Unfortunately, not enough. As early

as 1972, Gardner and Lambert recognized the approach needed for instructors dealing

with students in the US: The message for teachers and directors of language programs is

clear; in North American settings, students of foreign languages will profit more if they

can be helped to develop an integrative outlook toward the group whose language is

being studied (p. 130). This would mean for a student to experience an integrative

feeling in school, stepping through the classroom door should be like stepping off an

airplane into the target language community. I have seen this done in a high school

Spanish class, and the students positively commented that they felt like they were in a

foreign country every day for an hour. The walls were covered with posters from Spain,

the teacher played Spanish music, there were Spanish magazines and CDs available, and

only Spanish was spoken. Though no one evaluated the students success at acquiring

Spanish, this particular class was always full and highly recommended to other students.


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Surprisingly, Gardner and Lambert had the foresight to recognize that when it came to

learning English as the target language, the classroom approach should be different. They

wrote the following:

For members of ethnic minority groups in North America or citizens in developing

nations where imported foreign languages become one of the national languages, the

story is different. Learning a second language with national and worldwide recognition is

for them of vital importance, and both instrumental and integrative approaches to the

learning task must be developed (1972, p. 130).

If one looks at foreign language education on a global level, it would appear that most

nations have adopted this style of instruction. I believe this to be the case simply based on

the number of international students studying successfully in America, Canada, England

and Australia, as well as the plentiful number of English speaking persons I have

encountered in my numerous international travels. Gardner and Lambert did mention the

following precaution:

The fascinating challenge for these groups, however, is to keep their own

cultural and linguistic identity while mastering the second language. What

has been most encouraging to us throughout these investigations is the fact

that one can with the proper attitudinal orientation and motivation become

bilingual without losing ones identity (1972, p. 130).

This author feels such a policy has gone too far, especially with respect to heritage

language learning. It is unfortunate that my family lost its French and Italian heritage

languages in one generation due to the common US education policy of one nation, one

language. However, it is a greater travesty to be instructing students in Spanish in

American schools to the extent that they cannot pass English proficiency exams at the


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high school level, even though they were born in the US. I believe such policies to be

anti-motivational with respect to learning English. School systems have yet to develop a

balanced dual-language instructional system. This is unfortunate, as the benefits of such a

system would likely promote overall success in acquiring both languages. In fact, wrote

Gardner and Lambert, striving for a comfortable place in two cultures seems to be the

best motivational basis for becoming bilingual (1972, p. 130).

Years later, Gardner (1985) de-emphasized the teachers role and placed more

emphasis on the student when he stated, Motivation is a total state of the individual, not

just a simple interest in the language nor a drive to learn some specific material because

of some environmental pressure such as an examination or a desire to please a teacher or

parent. More recently, Gardner and Tremblay have identified what they label the

educational shift and motivational renaissance of the 1990s (as cited in Drnyei 2003, p.

11). Drnyei (2003) explained what he meant as follows:

The key assumption that energized this boom in research was that the classroom

environment - and more generally, the contextual surroundings of action had a

much stronger motivational influence than had been proposed before. Research-

ers therefore started to examine the motivational impact of the various aspects of

the learning context, for example, course-specificmotivational components (e.g.relevance of the teachingmaterials, interest in the tasks, appropriateness of the

teaching method), teacher-specificmotivational components, (the motivational

impact of the teachers personality, behavior, and teaching style practice), and

group specific motivational components (various characteristics of the learner

group such as cohesiveness, goal-orientedness and group norms (p. 11).


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At first this may seem advantageous, but from a research perspective, it opens up the

proverbial can of worms. Now there are even more factors affecting motivation, many of

them external, which the classroom language learner has little or no control over. With

Drnyeis implications, an already complex issue has just become much more involved.

Even before Drnyeis comment complicated matters, there were many critics of

motivation. Jakobovits (1970) reported, Dunkel found in a 1948 report that monetary

rewards did not significantly improve performance in an artificial language learning task

(p. 243). However, it is possible that the money was not interfering with the subjects

success at learning, but instead it was the artificial language that was the problem.

Learning such a language would have little if any impact on ones daily life, so as long as

they were getting paid, what difference would it make? Caroll believed that as long as

learners remain cooperative and actively engage in learning whether they want to or not,

motivational differences will not make much difference in achievement (as cited in

Jakobovits (1970, p. 243). Gardner and Lambert themselves mentioned the challenges of

researching the motivational aspects of second language achievement when they

commented on the inherent difficulty in conceptualizing and measuring those

motivational variables that would likely determine success in second language

acquisition (1972, p. 11-12).

Gardners socio-educational model was heavily criticized in the mid 1990s by a

number of respected researchers, including Drnyei, Oxford, Shearin, Crookes &

Schmidt who argued that motivation should be studied from different perspectives

(MacIntyre et al. 2001, p. 464). These authors, wrote MacIntyre et al. (2001) claimed

that Gardners theory put too much emphasis on the integrative and instrumental


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distinction and tended to ignore a list of variables from the broad psychological literature

in motivation, including extrinsic rewards, self-efficacy, expectancy, attributions, locus of

control and so on (p. 464). Bialystok and Hakuta (1994) agreed, stating that the learners

in the Gardner and Lambert language studies were never exclusively motivated by

instrumental or integrative orientation (p. 139). Instead, they attributed the motivation to

a combination of both orientations that was dependant on the individual. Bialystok and

Hakuta (1994) did concede that although motivational factors probably do not make

much difference on their own, they can create a more positive context in which language

learning is likely to flourish (p. 140).

Many criticisms have been based on empirical studies. McGraw (1978) reviewed

several studies in which in most instances, rewards impaired learning (as cited in Deci

& Ryan, 1985, p. 257). Providing extrinsic rewards such as money for learning words or

for forming concepts, wrote Deci & Ryan, seems to have distracted subjects from the

learning task and increased the time necessary for learning or problem solving. When

extrinsic rewards are introduced into a learning situation, some of the learners attention

appears to shift from the learning task to the reward (p. 257). Deci & Ryan also

discussed a translation study in Japan by Inagaki and Hatano (1984), which determined

the mere expectation of evaluations impaired students comprehension of material that

they were translating from English into Japanese. Thus, it appears that any external

condition that decreases intrinsic motivation will also impair performance on conceptual

activities (p. 257).

Meara and Skehan presented research by Oller and his associates, which showed

negative relationships between integrativeness and language proficiency. Various studies


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Motivation 22

examined Chinese, Japanese and Spanish speaking individuals and produced the

following results:

A negative correlation between Chinese university students desire to stay in the

US and their English proficiency; a negative association between Japanese

students proficiency in English and their ratings of English speakers as confident

and modest; a negative relationship between English proficiency and ratings of

Anglos for a group of Mexican-American women (Meara & Skehan 1989, p. 68).

Considering the complexity of motivation, it is possible that these studies did not

examine enough of the other possible causes for these findings, therefore producing

atypical results.

Lastly, there is some controversy concerning whether or not it is motivation that

drives language learning success, or does successful language learning influence

motivation. Meara and Skehan label this problem as the direction of causation (1989, p.

148). If this were the case, it would seriously undermine all of the findings proposed by

Gardner, as motivation would then become an effect, not a cause.

The only way to solidify the positive role motivation plays in language learning is

to conduct more studies. Meara and Skehan acknowledged the dearth of research in the

field and wrote there is value in widening the social situation in which the role of

motivation for language learning is studied (1989, p. 69). It would be pertinent to

conduct studies like Gardner and Lamberts 1960s French target language learning by

English speakers in Quebec, Louisiana and Connecticut across many languages today.

Meara and Skehan (1989) suggested the following:

One could research with other minority groups in other countries,

some indigenous, some immigrant, some who retain ethnolinguistic


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Motivation 23

vitality and others not. One could also look at refugee groups, comparing

those intending to stay in the host country as well as those intending to

move on (p. 69).

Factors such as age, language setting (foreign or domestic), language status relationships,

and methods of data collection could be altered and examined to see what effects they

have on motivation. It would be beneficial to do a follow-up on Drnyei and Clments

teen language motivation study in Hungary, perhaps even turning it into a longitudinal

study to see how motivation changes as the subjects mature. In Miami, it would be

interesting to study the apparently low levels of motivation with respect to learning

English of Spanish speaking immigrants, and contrast this to the highly motivated

Brazilian, Haitian and Russian populations living in there who often learn both English

and Spanish. The research possibilities are endless. The Spanish language classrooms in

South Texas, Southern Arizona and New Mexico, where American-born monolingual

English speakers are learning Spanish, now the dominant language of said areas, would

serve as an excellent laboratory. Would the English speakers be motivated enough to

learn a language that has been forced upon them, especially since failure to learn Spanish

limits their job marketability? Of course, there are more positive situations to explore. In

Switzerland, for example, people have been peacefully coexisting with five languages:

French, German, Swiss-German, Italian and Romansh for centuries. The Swiss are the

first to admit that having so many languages in such a small country can be challenging,

and there are sometimes ill feelings between the language groups. Today, however,

instead of German or French competing against one another for the number one language

position, they are competing together against English. This has to be affecting Swiss


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Motivation 24

pride. Someone should be studying motivation to learn English across Switzerland and its

language groups, especially among those in the work force, universities, and K-12, whose

lives are and will be most affected by the consolidation of Europes economies and the

obvious importance of the English language as the unifying factor on the European

continent.

There are so many reasons motivating individuals to learn other languages that

perhaps no one cause or type of motivation can possibly serve as the sole foundation of

language acquisition. After reading numerous books and articles searching for one

outstanding, concrete solution, perhaps the words of Noels provide the best advice. She

offered that in addition to the major players of integrative and instrumental motivation in

language acquisition, people may wish to learn an L2 for many number of reasons,

including intellectual stimulation, showing off to friends, a need for achievement and

stimulation, interest, curiosity, a desire for assimilation, travel, friendship, knowledge,

prestige, career, school, media, national security or any combination of these (Noels

2001, p. 44). It is plain to see that many of these involve overlapping integrative,

instrumental, intrinsic and social motivations. Gardner and Lambert (1972) concurred

with this idea when they stated, each setting and each ethnolinguistic group has its

own fascinating pattern of socio-psychological influences that change in unexpected

ways the manner in which attitudes and motivation play their roles (p. 121). There is

much work to be done before researchers, teachers and language learners will fully

understand motivation and all its aspects. In the words of Drnyei, L2 motivation as a

situated construct will undoubtedly be one of the main targets of future motivation

research (2003, p. 45), which is something I plan to be very much a part of.


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Motivation 25

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Motivation and Its Role on Language Acquisition