Motivation

12

To Get You Thinking Before You Read

1. What are some of the different motivations people might have for learning
language?
2. Some people say that we can do anything if we are sufficiently motivated.
Do you agree?
3. Some authors make the point that motivation is a complex phenomenon
which depends on numerous other individual and socio-ecological variables.
What are some of the other factors that might affect motivational level?
4. Motivation can also be dynamic (that is, it can change). Can you think of
any examples where this has happened in your own experience or anyone
else you know?

Background

The importance of motivation in language learning, described as “a key to learning”

(Brown, 1994, p. 152), has long been recognized. Cohen and Dörnyei (2002) used
the same “key” metaphor when they suggested that “motivation is often seen as the
key learner variable because without it, nothing much happens” (p. 152).
The motivation concept has been defined in various ways over the years. Gardner
(1985) provided a classic definition of motivation as applied to the language learn-
ing process as a characteristic which

refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus
favourable attitudes towards learning the language. That is, motivation to learn a second lan-
guage is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the
language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity. (p. 10)

© The Author(s) 2020 181

C. Griffiths, A. Soruç, Individual Differences in Language Learning,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52900-0_12
182 12 Motivation

According to Pintrich and Schunk (2007), motivation is “the process whereby

goal directed activity is instigated and sustained” (p. 5). Somewhat similarly,
Ushioda (2008) defines motivation as “what moves a person to make certain choices,
to engage in action, and to persist in action” (p. 19).
Perspectives have also varied over the years. In one of the earliest distinctions,
Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972) identified 2 different motivational orientations:

• integrative (arising from a desire to identify with those who speak the language,
perhaps in a social context, in a workplace or as an immigrant)
• instrumental (arising from a desire to benefit practically from acquiring the lan-
guage, for instance by gaining access to desired educational institutions, by get-
ting a better job, higher salary, etc).

Using this distinction as a theoretical framework, Gardner (1985) found that

motivation (especially integrative motivation) was significantly positively related to
achievement among students of French in Canada. In a later study, Gardner and
MacIntyre (1991) found that students who were offered a reward (instrumental
motivation) did significantly better on a vocabulary task; they reported that “instru-
mentally motivated students studied longer than noninstrumentaly motivated stu-
dents when there was an opportunity to profit from learning, but this distinction
disappeared when the incentive was removed” (p. 57), and they concluded that
“both integratively and instrumentally motivated students spent more time thinking
about the correct answer than those not so motivated, suggesting that both elements
have an energizing effect” (p. 57). More recently, Gardner (2012) investigated inte-
grative motivation among Polish school students; results indicated that motivation
was a consistent predictor of grades in English.
A somewhat different approach was taken by Deci and Ryan (1980) and Ryan
and Deci (2000). Based on the Self-Determination Theory (which is concerned with
the reasons behind the choices people make), they typified motivation as

• intrinsic (originating from within the learner—it is something the learner wants
for his/her own satisfaction)
• extrinsic (arising from outside the learner, for instance from a parent, a teacher/
school system or an employer).

Using this theoretical base, Noels, Pelletier, Clement, and Vallerand (2000) sur-
veyed 159 Anglophone learners of French at a university in Canada. They discov-
ered that intrinsic motivation was more strongly correlated with the criterion
measures than extrinsic motivation.
A meta-analysis carried out by Masgoret and Gardner (2003) investigated the
relationship of target language achievement to 5 other variables: integrativeness,
attitudes towards the learning situation, motivation, integrative orientation and
instrumental orientation, as well as age and availability of the language in the com-
munity. Altogether, 10,489 participants were involved. According to the authors, the
The Complex Nature of Motivation 183

results clearly demonstrated that the correlations between achievement and motiva-
tion were uniformly higher than those between any of the other variables.
A study which supports the idea of the critical importance of motivation is the
one by Griffiths (2018b). The participants in this study were 14 non-native speakers
of English, judged to be “successful” since they were all either teaching English or
teaching in English, the assumption being that those who are capable of performing
at this level must be at least reasonably competent (i.e. “good”) in English. Nine of
the participants were women and 5 were men, and in order to help minimize cultural
bias they were deliberately chosen to represent a variety of national backgrounds:
Turkey, Russia, the Czech Republic, India, Korea, China, Japan, Iran, Kyrgystan,
Pakistan, Poland, Kenya, Brazil and Finland. A Likert-type questionnaire was con-
structed using findings from the literature regarding the importance of motivation,
investment, beliefs, autonomy and strategy use. Respondents were asked to respond
to a series of statements on a scale of 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree). The
questionnaire was sent out by e-mail and returned by respondents at their conve-
nience. Given that Likert-style ratings are ordinal, median ratings are quoted
(Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018; Dörnyei, 2007), which provides an indication
of the overall agreement or disagreement with the given statements. As a result of
the data analysis, with only one exception, all respondents strongly agreed that they
were motivated, producing a maximum median rating of 5.0 (strongly agree). From
this result we can infer that these good language learners, almost without exception,
were motivated, adding yet more support to the idea that motivation is an important
contributor to successful language learning.

The Complex Nature of Motivation

Although the 2 dichotomous models of motivation (integrative versus instrumental

and intrinsic versus extrinsic) have proven to be enduring, they may be overly sim-
plistic: motivation is actually a highly complex phenomenon. For one thing, as
Ushioda (2008) points out, the different concepts may not necessarily be mutually
exclusive, but may be “working in concert with one another” (p. 22). Lamb (2016)
also notes that “researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the complexity of
internal and contextual factors that affect an individual’s motivation to learn a lan-
guage and how these factors interact” (p. 133).
According to a Complex Systems view, language learners are complex individu-
als. This implies that their motivation derives from multiple sources, such as their
own individual characteristics, the social and contextual ecologies to which they are
exposed (e.g. Gao, 2010; Sampson, 2016), their ideal vision of themselves (e.g.
Lamb, 2011), their own volitional competence (e.g. Oxford & Lee, 2008), and so
on. In fact, these multiple variables interact in incredibly complex and dynamic pat-
terns, producing effects which are more-or-less impossible to accurately and consis-
tently predict.
The complex nature of motivation is illustrated by a small-scale study by Griffiths
and Özgür (2013). At a private language school in Istanbul, Turkey, 44 students
184 12 Motivation

were asked to complete a short questionnaire (see Appendix) which included 8

statements relating to intrinsic, extrinsic, instrumental and integrative motivation.
The students were asked to rate each statement from 1 to 5 according to how strongly
they agreed or disagreed with it. According to the results, agreement was strongest
for instrumental motivation (getting a good job). However, the statement which had
the strongest correlation with successful course results was intrinsic (I study for my
own satisfaction). These results indicate a degree of ambivalence: students may
think they are studying in order to obtain some future goal, or to please somebody
else, and they may tell others that this is their reason, but it is actually those who
really want to learn who do best. Actually, this is an intriguing finding, which raises
interesting questions about the complex interactions between how a phenomenon is
perceived and its actual effect, and which deserves further investigation.

A new study

Although this result might seem contradictory, it was also found to be the case in
another study (Tugan, 2015, another aspect of which was described in the chap-
ter on affect), described below.

The instrumental/extrinsic-intrinsic contradiction

Süleyman Ertuğrul Tugan
This study took place at a private university in Turkey, as described in the
study of anxiety in Chap. 11. In order to gather data for this section of the
study, a motivation questionnaire was administered to the students during
class time. This was the same instrument as that used by Griffiths and Özgür
(2013) described above (see Appendix). Since the motivation questionnaire
included two items for each type of motivation (intrinsic, extrinsic, integrative
and instrumental), the ratings for each type were added together, producing a
total rating out of 10. Since Likert-type ratings are ordinal, medians were
calculated for the items of the motivation questionnaire, and nonparametric
correlations (Spearman’s rho) were calculated between the variables, as well
as key effect sizes (Cohen et al., 2018; Dörnyei, 2007).
The motivation questionnaire returned a Cronbach’s alpha reliability co-­
efficient of 0.747, which is adequate for the Social Sciences field (Dörnyei,
2007). According to the results, the motivational types which attracted the
strongest median levels of agreement were extrinsic and instrumental motiva-
tion (median=9 out of 10 for both). The lowest median (=7 out of 10) was for
integrative motivation (see Table 12.1).

(continued)
The Dynamic Nature of Motivation 185

(continued)

Table 12.1 Students’ (N = 406) median levels of agreement (out of 10) for each type
of motivation, plus the relationships with achievement (Spearman’s rho), the probability
values (p), and the percentage of variance or effect size (E = rs2)
Motivation type Median Spearman’s correlation Probability E
Intrinsic 8 rs = 0.174** p = 0.000 3.03
Extrinsic 9 rs = 0.009 p = 0.849 0.01
Integrative 7 rs = 0.146** p = 0.003 2.13
Instrumental 9 rs = 0.146** p = 0.003 2.13
NB: **indicates significance at the p < 0.01 (99%) level

As we can see from Table 12.1, although extrinsic and instrumental motiva-
tional types attracted the highest median agreement, it was intrinsic motiva-
tion which was most strongly correlated with achievement, although the effect
size is reasonably low (Plonsky & Oswald, 2014), a result which concurs with
the result of Griffiths and Özgür’s (2013) study described above. ◄

The Dynamic Nature of Motivation

Furthermore, rather than viewing motivation as a static phenomenon which can be

described according to integrative/instrumental, intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomies,
contemporary views are more likely to view motivation as dynamic and constantly
changing. The view of motivation as a highly dynamic phenomenon is further
developed by Dörnyei, MacIntyre, and Henry (2015).
Waninge, Dörnyei and De Bot (2014, p. 704) make the point that motivation in
language learning “is no longer seen as the stable individual difference factor it was
once believed to be: Influenced by process-oriented models and principles, and
especially by the growing understanding of how complex dynamic systems work,
researchers have been focusing increasingly on the dynamic and changeable nature
of the motivation process”. They conducted a study in which, over a period of
2 weeks, they “micromapped” the motivational dynamics of 4 language learners
during their language lessons using an instrument which they called the “Motometer”,
as well as classroom observations and a questionnaire on motivation and attitude.
The results indicated that, although motivation goes through stable phases, it also
fluctuates over time, and is context-dependent (that is, it can change according to the
situations in which learners find themselves).
Using specially designed software, MacIntyre and Serroul (2015) examined the
motivational fluctuations of 12 undergraduate students on a per-second timescale.
Somewhat similarly to Waninge et al. (2014) MacIntyre and Serroul (2015) also
found steadiness at some points and variability at others. As they wryly comment
“even the degree of variability shows variability!” (pp. 119–122).
186 12 Motivation

Making the point that many studies fail to consider the dynamic character and tem-
poral variability of motivation, Pawlak (2012) undertook a 4-week classroom-­based
study which investigated the motivational dynamics of 28 senior high school students in
terms of their goal-orientation as well as their participation in classroom activities. Data
were collected by means of questionnaires, observations and interviews. According to
the results, although the reasons for learning remained relatively stable over the time
scale involved, the intensity of motivation varied on a minute-to-minute basis.
The case of Lily (Griffiths, 2003) may well serve as a useful example of motiva-
tional dynamism.

Lily
Lily was a 26-year-old Swiss-German student who arrived in New
Zealand with her husband planning to immigrate. In order to strengthen
her eligibility for immigration and also for employment as a teacher, she
enrolled at a language school. Her English level was already high, and she
was an excellent student, working hard, enthusiastic in class, conscientious
with homework, and also willing to support other students whose English
was at a lower level than hers.
However, an interesting change occurred about half-way through the
course when she and her husband decided to apply for permanent residence.
Suddenly she urgently needed proof of her English level, so she sat the
IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exam and was
delighted to obtain a band score of 8.5 (The top band of 9 is often reckoned
to be at or near native-speaker level). Nevertheless, their residence applica-
tion was declined, which left Lily bitterly disappointed.
This rejection seemed to really affect Lily’s motivation. She was much less
positive in class, and homework was less carefully attended to. In addition,
when her mother came to visit from Switzerland, she became very homesick.
Although she had been expected to do very well in the exam for which she
was studying (Cambridge Proficiency in English/CPE), she did not achieve as
high a grade as had been anticipated.
About 18 months later, however, Lily and her husband came into the
school to show us their new baby and to tell us that they had just received
their permanent residence. Lily was back to her bright, bubbly self, confi-
dently anticipating getting a job as a teacher in the near future, and her
English was excellent.
Lily’s case would therefore seem to support the idea that rather than being
a static phenomenon, motivation can and does change dynamically in response
to changes in other factors which impact a learner’s life and state of mind. ◄

Another interesting example of how motivation can change dynamically was

reported by Griffiths (2018a)
Discussion 187

J. and the sports car

J. (an abbreviation of his name) was an international student at an
English language school in New Zealand. When he first arrived, he dis-
played negligible interest in studying, resulting in a low mid-term result,
which alarmed his wealthy father, who gave his son three alternatives: a
brand-new sports car for an A, a cheap second-hand car for a B, or a motor-
bike for a C.
This strong extrinsic motivation saw J. work hard for the rest of the
semester, resulting in an A pass, which his father duly rewarded with a
flashy new sports car as promised. As interesting, however, was the change
that was noted in J. himself. He seemed to actually enjoy being successful
at his studies, and from this point on he appeared to be intrinsically moti-
vated to work hard and achieve good grades, thereby demonstrating moti-
vational dynamism. ◄

Discussion

The studies presented above contribute to the idea that motivation is not a simple
phenomenon. On the contrary, it is extremely complex, as suggested by Griffiths
and Özgür’s (2013) study which found that students’ own assessment of their moti-
vation did not accord with the motivational type which produced the best course
results. The same inconsistency was found by Tugan (2015).
Motivation is also dynamic, that is, it can and does change. This dynamism is
demonstrated by the case of Lily, who went from being a highly motivated student
at the beginning of the course, to losing her motivation after a rejection, to regaining
her motivation and continuing on her successful language learning trajectory.
Another student who demonstrated motivational dynamism was J., who began as an
unmotivated and unsuccessful student, but who responded to an extrinsic motivator
(offered by his father) and became a highly successful student, continuing under the
impetus of intrinsic motivation beyond the point where he had achieved his prize (a
brand-new sports car). This accords with the conclusions of a study by Mercer
(2011) who conducted 21 interviews with her single participant (Joana) over 2 years,
and found that Joana’s motivation appeared to vary dynamically, depending on the
specific parameters (such as language domain) under consideration. Mercer (ibid.)
therefore argues that a complex system (such as motivation) is dynamic and always
in a constant state of flux.
188 12 Motivation

Other Factors Related to Motivation

Socio-ecological Context

Although the traditional motivational dichotomies have received a lot of research

interest over the years, increasingly, motivation is being seen as a sociocultural phe-
nomenon which arises from the ecological environment in which learners are situ-
ated. The social context of motivation was emphasized by Norton and Toohey
(2001) who described the experiences of 2 Polish immigrants, Eva and Julie, who
both managed to negotiate well-respected identities for themselves within their
respective social contexts. Norton and Toohey (ibid.) made the important point that
it is impossible to assess motivation except in relation to the context with which it
interacts: level of motivation might well have suffered if Eva and Julie had not man-
aged to gain acceptance by their communities. Likewise, when Mercer (2011)
investigated her participant, Joana’s agency, for a 2-year period, she found that
“contexts and the environments are seen as integral parts of a complex system,
rather than as external variables impacting on the system in a linear unidirectional
manner from outside” (p. 43).

Goal-orientation

A change of environment may be a result of a change in learning goal. Students who

have been studying in high school, for instance, may find themselves needing to
move to a new environment for further education, perhaps some distance from fam-
ily and established friendships, creating the potential for negative affective reac-
tions. Students who have been successfully studying General English may find
themselves struggling if they change their goal to study for an international exam,
or to take an ESP (Specific Purposes) or EAP (Academic Purposes) course. Or they
may decide they want to work for a different vocation, or their personal goals may
change (e.g. they may decide they want to travel or get married). On the other hand,
students who have been struggling with one learning goal may find themselves bet-
ter able to cope with a different goal, and this may well increase their motivation,
lead to more positive beliefs and affective reactions, and increase their willingness
to try new strategies, to invest more time and effort and to become more autonomous.

Visions of Future Selves

Related to goal-orientation may well be the vision that one holds of oneself for the
future, which is well-recognized as a powerful source of motivation (e.g. Dörnyei &
Ushioda, 2009). As Lamb (2011, p. 177) explains, “the self-identity we wish for in
the future can be a source of motivation…which will help us achieve that identity”.
Lamb (ibid.) describes a study which he undertook in Indonesia among 12 learners
of English, as a result of which he found that the motivated learners took personal
Other Factors Related to Motivation 189

control of their learning and exploited the available resources; they also had clear
goals for the future. By comparison, the future vision of the less motivated students
remained

vague and tentative. A common feature of their talk about the future is frequent hedging,
indicating feelings of uncertainty about what will happen and a lack of personal agency in
securing favourable outcomes…there is a sense of obligation in their statements as if they
are motivated more by fear of failure than a true vision of a future English-speaking self.
(p. 177)

Others who have examined motivation from an ideal-self perspective include

Islam, Lamb, and Chambers (2013), who investigated the motivation to learn
English of more than 1000 Pakistani undergraduate students. They found the con-
cept of the ideal future self to be the strongest predictor of learning effort.
Ryan (2006) brings a slightly different perspective to the ideal-self-concept when
he discusses the implications of learners who develop a vision of themselves within
an imagined global community. He argues that learners’ motivation derives from a
sense of membership of an imagined global community and their vision of them-
selves as users of the language rather than a desire to integrate with a target com-
munity, which may or may not correspond closely with the way the learner
imagines it.
Associated with the concept of future self is the idea of the “ought-to self” (e.g.
Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009), which reflects the expectations of others. According to
a study by Al-Hoorie (2016), the ought-to self turned out to be a negative predictor
of success in language learning. Indeed, according to Thompson (2017), the imposi-
tion of an ought-to self by others can lead to resistance and the development of an
“anti-ought-to self” which can be counterproductive in terms of successful language
learning.

Volition

Associated with motivation, the idea of volition has been around for some time
(e.g. Corno, 1989). Although a familiar concept in the psychological literature
(e.g. Kuhl, 1984), and in other fields (such as health, e.g. Karasaki, Fraser, Moore,
& Dietze, 2013), for some reason it has failed to make a great deal of impact in
the language learning field. One reason for this may be the similarity with motiva-
tion, which has, of course, absorbed a great deal of interest from language educa-
tors, and this may have led to the feeling that we really don’t need another similar
term. Nevertheless, volition, although it may overlap with motivation, is not
exactly the same.
According to Corno (1989, p. 111), volition is “the capacity to protect one’s own
psychological states”. Oxford and Lee (2008) explain volition as what good learners
do to “keep themselves going when the going gets tough” (p. 313). A similar ques-
tion is asked by Svinicki (2016, p. 11): “When the going gets tough, what do good
students do?” She points to what she calls the Rubicon Model,
190 12 Motivation

alluding to the observation that striving for a goal progresses in two stages: the assertion of
an intention to act and, on the other side of the Rubicon, the realities of following through.
A lot of research has been conducted on the motivational side of the Rubicon model, what
motivates the learner initially, but not as much on the volitional side, the processes that sup-
port working toward the goal.

An instrument to explore volitional processes was developed by McCann and

Garcia (1999). The Academic Volitional Strategies Inventory consists of a 3-factor
model of volitional strategies: strategies to support student self-efficacy for study-
ing, strategies to reduce emotional responses to stress that come with getting stuck,
and strategies to imagine the consequences of failure. Although the last of these
factors might be considered somewhat negative, McCann and Garcia comment that
there may be times when fear of failure may just provide the necessary prompt to
achieve instead of giving up (compare the case of J. described earlier, whose fear of
not earning the flashy new sport’s car promised by his father provided him with the
motivation to do well, which, in turn, provided motivation to continue doing well).

Investment

It would seem self-evident that learners’ level of motivation will be a major factor
in determining the level of investment they are prepared to devote to the language
learning process. The investment concept was introduced to the language learning
literature by Norton Peirce (1995), following the economic metaphors of Bourdieu
(1977) who describes linguistic development as cultural capital. As Norton Peirce
(1995) explains, when learners invest in language learning, an identity-enhancing
return on their investment is expected. Ushioda (2008, p. 24) further explains:

When learners invest in learning a new language, they do so with the understanding that
they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will enhance
their cultural capital, their conception of themselves, and their desires for the future. (p. 24)

Investment can take the form of time, attention and effort (in addition, perhaps,
to money). When a number of successful learners of English were surveyed by
Griffiths (2018b), the majority of the participants gave responses to the item on
investment in the “agree” (rating=4) to “strongly agree” (rating=5). However, in
order for students to be able to maintain the motivation to continue to invest time
and effort, they need to be able to see a return on their investment (Darvin & Norton,
2015, 2018; Norton, 2012, 2017).

Implications for Learning and Teaching

Cohen and Dörnyei (2002) suggest that teachers should actively address the issue of
student motivation in order to increase the effectiveness of instruction, and at times
teachers may feel guilty that unmotivated students are somehow their fault. However,
although the role of motivator is commonly listed among the roles that teachers are
Implications for Learning and Teaching 191

expected to perform (e.g. Harmer, 2012), one needs, perhaps to ask the extent to
which such an expectation is reasonable or even possible.
The indications are that the students whose interview data is reported in Griffiths
(2018b) succeeded or not largely on the basis of the motivation which they brought
with them into the classroom situation. We might therefore wonder whether it is
reasonable for teachers to be expected to motivate extremely unmotivated students,
a number of which are described in Griffiths (2003), for instance:

• Mikhail was studying at a language school in New Zealand to improve his

English to a level where he could go on to study law at university. Mikhail, how-
ever, had absolutely no interest in being a lawyer, and, as a result he failed the
qualifying exam, much to his parents’ displeasure.
• Yuki was only in New Zealand because of her children, who were studying at an
Auckland language school. She also had absolutely no interest in learning
English: she just needed to attend the school to satisfy her visa requirements. As
a result, she made negligible progress through the levels of the school, in spite of
being there for quite a long period of time.

How reasonable is it to blame the teacher for these students’ lack of motivation? It
would, nevertheless, certainly seem reasonable to expect that anything a teacher might
be able to do in terms of increasing students’ motivation (for instance by establishing a
good classroom atmosphere and relationships with the students) may well bear divi-
dends in terms of successful learning and in terms of students’ willingness to invest the
time and effort required. This certainly appeared to be the case in a study by Ryan and
Patrick (2001), who investigated how students’ (N = 233) perceptions of changes in
their classroom environment related to changes in motivation and engagement. They
found that students’ perceptions of teacher support, and the teacher as promoting inter-
action and mutual respect were related to positive changes in motivation and engage-
ment, while students’ perceptions of the teacher as promoting performance goals were
related to negative changes. Similarly, when Wu (2003) examined the influence of
classroom environment on intrinsic motivation of young foreign language learners
using a quasi-experimental study triangulated with observation and interviews, it was
found that a predictable learning environment, moderately challenging tasks, necessary
instructional support, and evaluation emphasizing self-improvement which attributed
success or failure to controllable variables were effective ways to enhance learners’
self-perceptions of competence; in addition, freedom to choose the content, methods
and learning performance outcomes, as well as strategy training, led to increased
autonomy and higher levels of motivation.
Meeting students’ deficiency needs, including love, self-esteem or respect, as in
line with humanistic psychology (e.g. Maslow & Rogers, 1979) could also help the
students to feel more motivated, more responsible and more independent, so that
they can start to reflect on what they need to know in order to actualize their aims.
In other words, when freedom is allowed as well as responsibility given, the stu-
dents are most likely to feel valued and important, which will further help them to
express agency and develop volitional competence to act or deal with the problems
encountered. When they discover their self-determining agency or innate potential
192 12 Motivation

for a fully developed self, they will feel more ready to change and more motivated
to do what they want and need to do.

Suggestions for Further Research

Motivation is already a very well-researched phenomenon, but, given the evidence

that it may well be the single most important predictor of language learning success,
there remains room for ongoing research to help determine how best to harness this
powerful driving force to good effect. Although the traditional dichotomies (inte-
grative/instrumental and intrinsic/extrinsic) have served us well in the past and pro-
duced some interesting insights, it is probably more useful to pursue a complex/
dynamic/contextualized perspective for the future, and to investigate

• the complex interaction of factors which influence motivation

• how and why motivation changes over time
• how a particular socio-ecological context influences motivation in different ways
• how motivation varies according to goal-orientation
• what teachers can do to promote learners’ motivation
• what learners can do themselves to maintain their own motivation

Conclusion

It would seem that it may be impossible to overestimate the importance of motiva-

tion in successful language learning: motivation is, indeed, the ultimate sine qua
non! If students really want to learn, and if they are motivated to invest sufficient
time and effort, there may well be little or nothing they cannot achieve. If, however,
on the contrary, they have little or no motivation (such as the cases of Yuki and
Mikhail noted previously), we really are in horses-to-water territory: they can be led
to the sweetest water in the world, but not even the best teachers can make them
drink if they are not motivated to do so.
The traditional instrumental/integrative and intrinsic/extrinsic motivational dichoto-
mies have actually served us well in the past and produced useful insights into learner
behaviour which in fact underpin a lot of our current thinking. The debt that we owe to
these theoretical frameworks should be acknowledged, and we should, perhaps, be
careful about allowing ourselves to be seduced into a babies-­and-­bathwater mentality
which might suggest that previous paradigms should be totally jettisoned in favour of
the latest theoretical fashions. Nevertheless, we should also be willing to move with the
times, and current thinking is very much in a complex/dynamic/contextual direction.
Having said that, complex/dynamic systems are diabolically difficult to opera-
tionalize (e.g. Ushioda, 2015), which may well have contributed to the reasons why
researchers have avoided trying to do it for so long. Indeed, this presents itself as a
major current need for researchers to address: how to research a complex/dynamic
system in such a way that it captures the interconnectedness, socio-ecological situ-
ation and changeability of a multifaceted and constantly fluctuating variable such as
motivation in a holistic and meaningful way.
Conclusion 193

Questions to Consider

1. Why do you think there might be inconsistency between the kind of motivation
that students attribute to themselves and the way the phenomenon actually
relates to successful outcomes?
2. Do you think that the instrumental/integrative and/or the intrinsic/extrinsic
dichotomies are useful ways of viewing motivation?
3. Do you agree that motivation is contextualized? Can you think of any examples?
4. Do you agree that motivation is complex and dynamic? Can you think of
examples?
5. Do you think it was right for J.’s father to try to motivate his son as he did?
6. What do you think the future might be for Lily?
7. Do you agree that the concept of the ideal self might be a useful motivator?
8. How do you think the concept of volition might be more actively employed by
educators?
9. How are motivation and investment related?
10. What instructional strategies can teachers use to motivate extremely unmoti-
vated students as illustrated in Griffiths (2003)?

► Follow-up Task Conduct a case study of a learner you know whose motivation
has varied over time.

► Suggestions for Further Reading In addition to the references cited in text and
in the reference list, readers might like to consider:

Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language

Teaching, 31, 117–135
Zoltan Dörnyei is, perhaps, the key figure in the way that motivational studies have
developed to date, and this is one of his early works. As such, it helps to illumi-
nate the development of our understanding of this important topic.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
This is now a classic on this subject. Part of its appeal is that, rather than being just
a book of theory, it deals with the subject from the grassroots.
Dörnyei, Z., & Chan, L. (2013). Motivation and vision: An analysis of future L2 self
images, sensory styles, and imagery capacity across two target languages.
Language Learning, 63(3), 437–462.
This is an important contribution to the ideal-self concept which has become an
important theme in motivation research
Dörnyei, Z., & Ushioda, E. (2013). Teaching and researching motivation (2nd ed.).
Oxon: Routledge.
In this book, 2 important figures in the field come together to present key pedagogi-
cal and research issues relating to motivation issues in
Murray, G., Gao, X., & Lamb, T. (2011). Identity, motivation and autonomy. Bristol:
Multilingual Matters
This is another important contribution to the motivation issue by 3 other prominent
figures in the field.
194 12 Motivation

Appendix: Motivation Questionnaire

Please note: although this questionnaire specifies English, it could, of course, be

easily adapted to survey any language

Dear Participant: Please rate each item according to the following scale:

5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, 1=strongly disagree

There is also a column for your comments. The items questions do not have a
right or wrong answer. Thank you for your contribution.

Questions Rate Comments

1. I learn English so that I can improve myself.
2. I learn English for my own satisfaction
3. My parents want me to study
4. My school wants me to study
5. I am interested in English culture
6. I want foreign friends.
7. I think English is beneficial for me to study.
8. I need to study abroad.

I consent to the use of these data for research or publication: Yes No

References
Al-Hoorie, A. (2016). Unconscious motivation. Part II: Implicit attitudes and L2 achievement.
Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 6(4), 619–649.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information, 16,
645–668.
Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Cohen, A., & Dörnyei, Z. (2002). Focus on the language learner: Motivation, styles and strat-
egies. In N. Schmitt (Ed.), An introduction to applied linguistics (pp. 170–190). London:
Edward Arnold.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education (8th ed.). London
and New York: Routledge.
Corno, L. (1989). Self-regulated learning: A volitional analysis. In B. Zimmerman & D. Schunk
(Eds.), Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theory, research and practice
(pp. 111–141). New York: Springer.
Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2015). Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics. Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 36–56.
Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2018). Identity, investment, and TESOL. In The TESOL Encyclopedia
of English Language Teaching (pp. 1–7). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (1980). The empirical exploration of intrinsic motivational processes. In
L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39–80).
New York: Academic Press.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dörnyei, Z., MacIntyre, P., & Henry, A. (Eds.). (2015). Motivational dynamics in language learn-
ing. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.