SLL Assessment_Individual differences in second language learning

Introduction

Motivation, as Martin Covington (1998) simply puts, “is

easier to describe (in terms of its outward, observable

effects) than it is to define” (Covington, 1998: 1).

However, the difficulty has not stopped psychologists

trying to conceptualise it. For example, Dornyei (1990)

conducts an FLL-context based study, with the aim of

exposing the main characteristics of

instrumental/integrative orientations of motivation (see

below for discussion about Gardner’s (1985) motivation

model) and conceptualising the term. Some definitions

appear to be rather descriptive, such as “motivation in

psychological field deals with why people behave as they

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do” (Woldkowski, 1986: 44-45), and “’motivation’ is a

general way of referring to the antecedents (i.e. the

causes and origins) of the action” (Dornyei, 2001a: 7).

Since the launching work by Gardner and his colleagues in

Canada, a great many socio-psychologists have undertaken

research on motivation with the attempt to answer a

series of questions – “why people desire to do something,

how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they

are willing to sustain the activity” (ibid).

In terms of language learning, motivation also plays a

decisive part, determining how keen the learners are, how

much effort they are willing to make and how perseverant

they are likely to be. This is consistent with Dornyei

and Otto’s (1998) dynamic perspective of L2 motivation

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(see further discussion in part 1.3), and compliant with

their definition of motivation – one of the few elaborate

definitions to my personal point of view – that

motivation is dynamically aroused in a person and exerts

changing, cumulative impacts on the cognitive process,

determining how people’s desires are initialised and

carried out (Dornyei and Otto, 1998: 64). Also, Dornyei

(2001a) provides a comprehensive explanation about the

correlation between language learners’ motivation and the

effectiveness of certain motivational strategies.

Regarding the significance of motivation for language

learners, he makes a comparison between the motivated and

less-motivated learners, from which we could see that

motivation is perceived as a prerequisite of an effective

L2 learning:

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“Indeed, in the vast majority of cases learners

with sufficient motivation can achieve a working

knowledge of an L2, regardless of their language

aptitude or other cognitive characteristics.

Without sufficient motivation, however, even the

brightest learners are unlikely to persist long

enough to attain any really useful language”

(Dornyei 2001a: 5)

Given the importance of motivation to L2 learning, it is

of no doubt that a thorough understanding of this broad

and important psychological concept will be massively

important for L2 teachers to understand learners’

intention and expectancy and – to some extent – predict

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how satisfactory they are likely to become. In this

essay, I will first provide a brief review of the

literature on motivation research that has been

influential in the field of social psychology as well as

second language learning, in consideration of

illustrating the role of motivation in the process of

second language learning. Second, an empirical research

study on the relationship between motivational strategies

and learners’ motivation will be examined, primarily on

the research design. Finally, based on the findings of

this study, some pedagogical implications of motivational

strategies in L2 classroom will be explained.

1. Motivation research in the L2 field

1.1 Motivation as a sociocultural event

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L2 motivation research was initiated in Canada – one of

the rare countries where two official languages (English

and French) are spoken (Dornyei, 2001a: 15). Robert

Gardner and his colleagues look at motivation from a

social psychological perspective and put forward a few

versions of theoretical models (Gardner 1979, 1981,

1983). They assert that L2 learning is, rather than

simply an educational phenomenon, more of a social event;

learners perceive the L2 language as an integration of a

wide range of symbolic elements of its speakers and

culture (Gardner, 1979: 193). Therefore, learners’

attitude towards the L2 community is of great impact on

the language learning process. As Gardner (1979) states,

learning a second language in a school setting involves

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the students’ self-imaging themselves as a member of the

target language community. In other words, L2 learners

tend to develop a new identity out of their own ones in

order to better understand the cultural heritage of the

target language community (Gardner, 1979, cited in

Dornyei, 2001a: 14). This explains why learners with a

positive attitude towards the target language, its

speakers and society are more likely to learn faster than

those who are comparatively less keen.

In light of this social psychological stance, Gardner’s

(1983) motivation model demonstrates that cultural

beliefs underlie the formation of learners’

integrativeness and attitudes towards the learning

environment – two components of learners’ motivation.

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‘Integrativeness’, as one of the two variables relevant

to language acquisition, refers to “positive affect

towards the other language community, or communities in

general” (Gardner, 1983: 222). In his 1985 model, Gardner

further develops ‘integrativeness’ as one of the two

broad categories of L2 learners’ motivation -

‘integrative orientation’. Meanwhile, he defines

‘instrumental orientation’ to reflect the goals of

certain learners who primarily needs a L2 proficiency for

better educational or professional opportunities. This

integrative/instrumental duality places an emphasis on

the sociocultural characteristics of L2 motivation, and

has been influential in the L2 research field for decades

(Gardner 1985, cited in Dornyei, 2001a: 16).

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The most researched aspect of Gardner’s (1985) social

psychological model, however, is his proposal of

‘integrative motive’ as a supplement of his 1983 model.

The three components of ‘individual difference’ section

of the 1983 model are further elaborated into a complex

construct. To explain, at one side of the spectrum,

‘integrativeness’ is subdivided into ‘integrative

orientation, interest in foreign languages’ and

‘attitudes toward L2 community’. ‘Attitudes toward the

learning situation’, which is the other important

component of motivation, is divided into two parts –

‘evaluation of the L2 teacher’ and ‘evaluation of the L2

course’. At the other side of the spectrum, ‘motivation’

is not only a construct of the above two elements, but

also contains the learners’ ‘desire to learn the L2’

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‘motivational intensity’ and ‘attitudes towards learning

the language’ (Gardner, 1985, see Dornyei, 2001a: 16-17).

Through analysis, we could notice that the illustration

of ‘integrative motive’ in Gardner’s (1985) social

psychological model is broader and more emphasised on the

resources of individual difference, which are presumably

influential for the formation of language learning

motivation. However, neither of these models could

ascertain which exact aspect of individual difference

arouses learners’ initiation motivation.

1.2. Motivation in educational research

The 1990s witnesses a shift in the field of L2 motivation

research. An increasing number of scholars start to call

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for more research attention to educational research on

motivation, as too much focus has been made on social

psychological frameworks. As Graham Crookes and Richard

Schmidt (1991) states, for example, discussion of the

topic of motivation has placed too much primary emphasis

on social psychological facets of L2 learning (e.g.

attitudes, desire) and this is inconsistent with the way

L2 teachers use the term in education (Crookes and

Schmidt, 1991: 469). One noticeable switch is that

researchers tend to address questions related to

cognition and motivation, such as whether an instrumental

or integrative motivation of learning L2 leads to

learners’ more investments, or whether learners’

satisfactory cognitive performance reduce their learning

anxiety and thus make them more motivated (Macaro, 2003:

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93). Despite the fact that a great deal of research on

motivation and attitude has proved the existence of the

interrelationship, it is an outstanding question that how

exactly motivation relates to language learners’

performance and success. As Peter Skehan (1989) notes,

“the question is, are learners more highly motivated

because they are successful, or are they successful

because they are highly motivated?” (Skehan, 1989, cited

in Lightbown and Spada, 1999: 56).

Another remarkable change in terms of motivation research

in this decade is that more important aspects of

motivation – in addition to integrative and instrumental

elements – start to draw researchers’ attention. These

motives used to be marginalised and underestimated in

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research, and as a result, some new constructs of L2

motivation are proposed. Of all frameworks in this era,

Dornyei (1994) and Williams and Burden (1997) are

regarded the most elaborate and influential (Dornyei,

2001a: 17).

As Dornyei (2001a) explains himself, his 1994 L2

motivation framework is “a good example of ‘the

educational approach’” as it conceptualises the term

specifically from classroom perspective (Dornyei, 2001a:

18). First, the integrative/instrumental dichotomy in

Gardner’s (1985) representation is congregated as

‘language level’, encompassing a wide range of linguistic

aspects of learners’ concern about the L2 language, the

culture and the language community. The ‘learner level’,

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subsequently, associates with the influential

characteristics regarding the learner, of which self-

confidence of learners are highlighted. Factors including

language use anxiety, perceived L2 competence,

attributions of the achieved progress, and self-efficacy

are considered building learners’ self-confidence towards

L2 learning (ibid). The notion of self-efficacy in this

model is of particular importance as it indicates

learners all hold an intrinsic expectation of success and

a clear value of their own progress (Macaro, 2003: 95).

The third level of L2 motivation in Dornyei’s (1994)

model is learning situation level, which includes

motivational components associated with the learning

environment, teacher and peer groups.

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The other influential framework of L2 motivation is

presented by Williams and Burden (1997). In this model,

L2 motivation is considered from internal and external

dimensions, based on which L2 motivation is constructed

into two categories with a number of subcomponents in

each. Unlike Dornyei’s (1994) framework which to some

extent appears to be an extension of Gardner’s (1983)

instrumental/integrative dichotomy, a wider range and

more detailed influential factors of motivation are taken

into account in William and Burden’s (1997) model. To be

specific, external factors refer to the influence of

classroom environment, significant people and the

interaction with them, and out-of-class linguistic

environment such as the social expectation and value.

Internal factors, on the other hand, contain more

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specific subareas and can be divided into “attitudes,

identity and feelings of agency” (Williams and Burden,

2002: 510). The latter ones, according to the researchers

themselves, are of essential importance in this model as

they are distinguished from most of the previous models

primarily with statistical means of identifying

motivational elements (ibid: 172). Both of these models,

however, are acknowledged to have failed to indicate the

interrelationship between the listed components and be

oversimplistic in the division of

instrumental/integrative motivation dichotomy (Dornyei,

1994) and external/internal distinction (Williams and

Burden, 1997) (Dornyei, 1998: 126; Williams and Burden,

2002: 510).

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1.3. Motivation as a dynamic process

In order to address the change of motivation over time,

Dornyei and Otto (1998) put forward a process-oriented

model of L2 motivation. They adopt a dynamic perspective

and process-oriented approach, synthesise mainstream

theoretical findings and models from various sources with

the attempt to develop a sound one both applicable for L2

learning/teaching theorists and practitioners. The device

of this model is based on the fact that “motivation is

not static but dynamically evolving and changing in time”

(Dornyei and Otto, 1998: 43), and the researchers take

time as the organising principle, which means the change

of L2 motivation is analysed with a time-sequence axis,

named pre-actional stage, actional stage, and post-

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actional stage (see Dornyei and Otto, 1998: 48; Dornyei

and Skehan, 2003: 619; Dornyei 2001a: 22). As Dornyei

himself explains, the reason why time is regarded a

reasonable and ‘natural’ way of ordering motivational

influences is that often certain components of motivation

could only exert a temporal influence, and the ignorance

of acknowledging the temporally effective impacts of

different phases of motivation results contradictory

propositions between the traditional socio-psychological

approach and the reformed ones (Dornyei and Skehan, 2003:

198).

In addition, Dornyei and Otto’s (1998) process-oriented

motivation theory is also significant as it is taken as

the framework basis for designing motivational strategies

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for L2 classroom. As defined in Dornyei (2001a),

‘motivational strategies’ means “those motivational

influences that are consciously exerted to achieve some

systematic and enduring positive effect” (Dornyei, 2001a:

28). Based on the process motivation theory, Dornyei

(2001a) develops a comprehensive model of motivational

teaching practice, which serves as a systematic framework

of motivational strategies in the L2 classroom (see

Dornyei, 2001a: 29). In this circulus model, four key

units (i.e. ‘creating the basic motivational conditions’

‘generating initial motivation’ ‘maintaining and

protecting motivation’ and ‘encouraging positive

retrospective self-evaluation’) are developed with a list

of instructional strategies, respectively. By these

instructions, this well-illustrated model sheds light on

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a practical issue about how teachers actually motivate

learners. Further discussions on the researched

interrelationship between teachers’ application of

motivational strategies in classroom and the learners’

motivation will be provided below.

2. Dornyei and Guilloteaux’s (2008) empirical study

As argued earlier, most of the literature on motivation

research has been unanimously emphasised on the nature of

motivation, whereas little empirical evidence has been

shown to support how motivation motivates. Although it is

generally believed an evident statement that teachers’

motivational skills should be essential in teaching, few

researchers have borne witness to it through classroom-

oriented studies. In light of this, Dornyei and

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Guilloteaux’s (2008) research on the interrelationship

between teachers’ motivational strategies and students’

motivational behaviours is welcome.

This empirical study is based on a large-scale classroom

observation in 40 ESOL classrooms in South Korea,

involving 27 teachers and over 1300 students (Dornyei and

Guilloteaux, 2008: 55). Two research questions are put

forward through the research design: “1) How does the

teacher’s motivational teaching practice affect the

students’ classroom motivation in terms of the level of

their attention, participation, and volunteering? 2) What

is the relationship between the students’ self-reported

motivation (assessed by questionnaire), their actual

classroom behaviour, and the teachers’ classroom

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practice?” (ibid: 60). Data is collected by mixed methods

through three approaches 1) classroom observation, 2)

students’ self-report questionnaire, and 3) teachers’

postlesson evaluation. The involvement of classroom

observation in this research is of great significance to

motivation research, as it provides objective data about

students’ observable motivational behaviours rather than

simply teachers’ self-reports. Through a new-designed

instrument – motivation orientation of language teaching

(MOLT), 25 observable categories of teachers’ motivating

behaviours are identified (see ibid: 63-64), on the

theoretical basis of Dornyei’s (2001a) motivational

strategies. Students’ motivated behaviours, on the other

hand, are measured and presented in three categories: 1)

attention; 2) participation; and 3) volunteering in

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teacher-oriented classroom (Dornyei and Guilloteaux,

2008: 62). This study eventually provides powerful

evidence to the indispensible effect of teachers’

motivational skills to students’ motivation in L2

teaching context.

A thought-provoking aspect of the research design,

however, can be critiqued. According to the research

design, the authors are in the attempt of “examining the

quality of the teachers’ overall motivational teaching

practice” (ibid: 60). Nevertheless, instead of

approaching this goal, most of the observation data seem

to divert the analysis focus to the quantity of

observable practice rather than quality. First, the

researchers seem to have made an assumption that the more

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motivational strategies are observed in class, the better

they work on the formation of students’ motivation.

Second, issues that should have been mattered our

thorough understanding about the researched

interrelationship seems to be why students behave so, for

example “why do students participate?” instead of the

quantitative aspect of their participation (Ellis, 2009:

107). Third, as discussed above, it is an understandable

fact that no single student expects to learn without

being motivated by teachers, thus such application of

teachers’ motivational strategies should serve the goal

of facilitating learning. However, in this research, no

evidence has been provided regarding how each category of

teachers’ motivational practice in the classroom has

influence learners’ L2 learning. Despite that the strong

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interrelationship between teachers’ motivational

strategies and students’ motivation has been

statistically proved, there is no evidence can be found

as to what exact motivational strategy can lead to

successful L2 learning.

Apart from this, the use of some measurements needs

clarification. For instance, “attention” “participation”

and “volunteering for teacher-fronted activity” are

measured as learners’ motivated behaviours, with

descriptions for each category. However, the way of this

setting needs a rationale in terms of why these three

categories are believed to be able to measure students’

motivated behaviour. Also, some of the descriptions of

each category, through critical analysis, might not

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satisfy my curiosity about what exact behaviours count.

For example, is students’ oral interaction in class or

paper-based assignment task performance seen as equally

influential representatives of students’ motivated

behaviour? In what way does “participation” set apart

from “volunteering”? These questions need to be answered

in order to increase validity.

To sum up, this study is significant in the field of L2

motivation research concerning its objectivity and

convincing results. It has inspired a number of

subsequent research on narrower domains, such as L2

teachers’ motivational strategies, learners’ motivation,

the effect and correlation (e.g. Weng, 2010; Werner,

2008).

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3. Pedagogical significance

One of the most important significance of Dornyei and

Guilloteaux’s (2008) empirical study is that, by

presenting authentic data from real-world L2 classrooms,

it confirms the hypothesised connection between teachers’

motivational strategies application and students’

motivational behaviour and motivational state in L2

classroom. Prior to this study, the link between

teachers’ motivating and students’ motivation in terms of

L2 acquisition had been researched solely through

teachers’ subjective reports, which leads to the

pedagogical implications doubtful. This research, to some

extent, grounds further research as it not only confirms

the above belief (Dornyei and Guilloteaux, 2008: 72), but

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also provides a scientific research instrument in

motivational classroom activity observation. It sheds

light on the research focus switch from conceptualising

motivation and revealing its nature to the practical

pedagogical applications of motivational skills in the

classroom. This change fills in the blank of serviceable

and applicable research on motivational skills and

effects, and thus can inspire L2 teaching in the

following aspects.

According to the authors, one of the important

implications of this study is that it brings the issue of

whether teachers’ motivational strategy awareness should

be trained to the attention of teacher training

programmes. In addition, the issue of how effective could

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the training be comes with discussions about the

teachability of motivational strategies (ibid: 72).

Evident though that how to motivate students is

invariably an important issue to L2 teachers (Veenman,

1984, cited in Dornyei, 2001: 117), I suggest that – for

specific classroom environment – teacher training

programme designers should take into consideration the

diverse teaching contexts and learners background, as

occasionally not all the four phases of Dornyei’s (2001)

motivational teaching practice model apply to every

classroom. In another words, teachers’ awareness of

motivating students should be based on their

understanding of in which learning phases the students

currently are. From my personal teaching experience, for

example, what mostly concern the teachers is not whether

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learners are motivated or what arouses their motivation,

as the majority of the students are adults who are

apparently self-motivated before signing in the course.

All new enrolled students are supposed to participate in

a 15-minute oral placement test, with topics centred at

their reasons of learning English and their achievement

expectancy by the end of the first module. The result

shows that most of our adult students feel the

instrumental needs of using English to communicate with

peers and bosses in workplace, to get a promotion, or an

opportunity to work overseas. Meanwhile, a few learners

claim to in the process of immigrant to English speaking

countries, and a higher level of English proficiency is

either required by immigrant policy or perceived

necessary by themselves. For these adult learners, their

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status of being motivated before teachers’ intervene is

easy to understand, thus teachers do not feel the need to

generate their initial motivation in classroom. In this

respect, what seems to truly concern the teachers is how

to maintain and protect students’ motivation and help

them keep making improvements. According to the authors,

positive effects of a systematic and context-appropriate

implementation of motivational strategies are expected if

the teacher participants were trained (Dornyei and

Guilloteaux, 2008: 73), thus increases my anticipation to

apply these strategies in teaching practice to maintain

and amplify learners’ motivation.

The use of teachers’ postlesson evaluation scale in this

study is another inspiring and applicable method of

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teaching quality evaluation. From my personal experience,

students’ evaluation scale is often used, normally

completed anonymously and collected at the end of class

as a way of monitoring classroom teaching effectiveness.

Questions in the evaluation scale are usually designed

from learners’ perspective, yet are rarely treated

seriously by students, making the validity and impact of

the evaluation questioned. The teacher evaluation scale,

however, can be assumed a retrospective and more

effective approach, as it is expected to be used by

teachers who bear a better understanding of teaching and

learning goals whereby the awareness of how to optimise

the implementation of certain motivational strategies in

the coming lessons may arise.

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Conclusion

Since the pioneering social psychological research in

Canada on the characteristics and components of

motivation, a massive number of studies have been

conducted from both educational and social psychological

perspectives. Numerous amount of literature has been

produced on various issues, including but not limited to

the nature of motivation, second language teachers’

motivational strategies, the correlations between

teachers’ motivating and learners’ motivational status,

motivating learners, motivating teachers, pedagogical

application of specific motivational strategies (e.g.

creating a motivational classroom environment), etc. This

essay has reviewed a number of influential research,

provided a briefly critiqued momentous empirical study –

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Dornyei and Otto’s (1998) – on the effects of teachers’

motivational strategies on L2 leaners’ motivation, and

finally illustrated how significant the research findings

are in terms of practical second language teaching

contexts. Through analyses in this essay, I believe that

the role of motivation in second language acquisition has

become a fruitful research area from both theoretical and

empirical evidences, whereas motivation is still a

complex issue in second language teaching and learning.

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