Motivation and Second Language Learning

The importance of student motivation has become a central issue in psychological and educational research. Motivation might be a key in answering questions about why some students seem to learn and thrive in school contexts while other students seem to struggle to develop the knowledge and cognitive resources to be successful academically

The term motivation is derived from the Latin verb movere, which means to move. Motivation can be broadly defined as is the driving force by which human beings achieve their goals. Motivational theories try to answer questions about what gets individuals moving toward a certain activity or task (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Research in motivation has been classified into two major schools: the content theories of motivation and the process theories of motivation. The content theories of motivation, also called need theories of motivation, focuses on factors internal to the individual. In these theories motivation is regarded as the product of internal drives that induce an individual to act or move toward the satisfaction of individual needs (Fiore, 2003) Major content theories of motivation are Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Alderfer's ERG theory, Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory, and McClelland's learned needs or three-need theory. On the other hand, process theories of motivation, also called cognitive theories, focus on conscious human decision processes as an explanation of motivation. Therese theories attempt to establish how individual behavior is energized, directed, and maintained in the specifically willed and self-directed human cognitive processes (Thompson, 1996). The major process theories of motivation are expectancy theory, equity theory, goal-setting theory, and reinforcement theory.

Motivation has been studied in different fields, for instance, psychology, management, . Education is important because it can have numerous effects on how students learn and how they behave towards a subject matter.

Motivation can direct a student’s behavior toward particular goals, it can lead to increased effort and energy, and it can lead to improved performance (Ormrod 2003).

Many researchers recognize motivation as a crucial predictor of success in second language acquisition. A large amount of research has been done in order to explore motivation and its effects on second language learning. Most of the research involving motivation in second language learning goes along with a trend that focuses mainly on the learner’s motivation to interact or communicate with the target language speakers.

Gardner (1959) started out his research by expressing that achievement in a second language is dependent upon the same type of motivation that is apparently necessary for the child to learn his first language. Later on his research, Gardner et al. (1985) states that there are factors that are interrelated when learning a second language. The model relates four features of second language acquisition, social and cultural milieu, individual learner differences, the setting or context in which learning takes place and linguistic outcomes. Individual differences are believed to be the most influential in second language acquisition. These include the variables of intelligence, language aptitude, motivation and situational anxiety. Motivation is perceived to be composed of three elements: effort, desire and affect. Effort refers to the time spent studying the language and the drive of the learner. Desire indicates how much the learner wants to become proficient in the language, and affect illustrates the learner's emotional reactions with regard to language study. The model proposes that language aptitude and motivation facilitate second language acquisition, whereas language anxiety has a debilitating effect (Gardner, 1985; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993).

Other Motivational Theories

Self-Determination Theory: Noels et al. (2000) state that motivational orientations can be categorized according to the extent to which the goal for performing an activity is self-determined, that is chosen freely by the individual. The study differentiates intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, with the first being the most highly self-determined type of motivation. When a learner is intrinsically motivated, he or she will freely choose an activity because the activity is viewed as interesting and fun to do. Extrinsic motivation suggests that the motivational orientation is not regulated by the pleasure of engaging in the challenging and competence-building activities, but rather by factors apart from the activity.

Attribution Theory: It manages to link past experiences with future achievement efforts by introducing causal attributions as the mediating link. Weiner (1992), has argued, the subjective reasons to which we attribute our past successes and failures. Attitudes, orientations, and motivations considerably shape our motivational disposition. Because of the generally high frequency of language learning failure worldwide, attritional processes are assumed to play an important motivational role in language studies.

Goal Theory: Tremblay, & Gardner’s (1995) introduced the concept of ‘‘goal salience’’ as a central component, conceptualized as a composite of the specificity of the learner’s goals and the frequency of goal-setting strategies used. There is not enough research on second language acquisition and the goal theory of motivation.

Kormos, & Csizér (2008) state that it is probably an impossible task to devise a universally applicable theory of motivation because, as their research suggests, it is not only the case that a fixed set of factors play a role in L2 motivation.

Integrative Motivation vs. Instrumental Motivation

When referring to motivation it is important to distinguish the two main types: integrative and instrumental. Integrative motivation is identified as the learner's orientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language. A learner will have integrative motivation when he or she has positive attitudes towards the target language group and has a desire to integrate into the target language community (Crookes, & Schmidt, 1991).

Instrumental motivation on the other hand is characterized by the desire to obtain something practical or concrete from the study of a second language. Instrumental motivation underlies the goal to gain some social or economic reward through second language achievement (Hudson 2000).

The Socio-Educational Model of Language Learning includes integrative motivation as a main concept, and attempts to measure it together with other motivational concepts such as instrumental orientation. He used a standardized motivation assessment instrument called the Attitude/Motivation