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Examensarbete, Avancerad nivå (yrkesexamen), 30 hp Engelska med ämnesdidaktisk inriktning LP Handledare: Marko Modiano Examinator: Pia Visén
The study of motivation in language learning and language teaching has a long history. The present study investigates what attitudes students in upper secondary school have towards the English language and what motivates them to learn it. The study is based on a questionnaire regarding motivation and sixty students have participated. The study shows that the students have acknowledged the status of the English language in the world and its function as an international language as well as its function as a tool for communicative purposes. A conclusion is that they have positive attitudes in general towards the English language as well as learning English.
The ongoing globalization of Sweden has had great impact on our society and on the people who live in it. Sweden is a rather small country with approximately 10 million inhabitants. Individuals need to be able to communicate with people from all around the world and our tool of communication has become the English language. The English language has grown strong in Sweden. Many people come in contact with it daily when listening to pop music, watching TV or from using social media. In Sweden children begin to study English at the age of nine and they continue to do so until they graduate from high school. The English language has high status in Sweden compared to other languages that are spoken in our society today as for example Finnish or Arabic. The English language is seen as a high-status language not only in Sweden but also internationally. English has become a big part of education especially at universities. Some corporate groups have English as an official language although they may be based in Sweden. English is formally the official language for one third of the world´s countries which is about 1, 5 billion people and at least 375 million people have English as their native language. The majority of international communication is done in English within important areas such as politics, marketing and the financial world (Höglin 2002, p.7). English is at the present our leading language in communicating across borders but also when it comes to communicating with other people who do not speak the same native language within our own country. Motivation is a key factor when it comes to learning a second language or in any learning for that matter. A lot of research has been carried out regarding the subject and there are several theories from which the subject can be analyzed. Nevertheless, it is person bound and therefore it differs from individual to individual, which from a classroom perspective as well as from a teacher perspective makes motivation a complex phenomenon. This study aims to investigate what attitudes students attending Swedish upper secondary have towards the English language and what motivates them to learn English.
The hypothesis in this study is that one of the major reasons for students’ motivation to learn English is because of its status of being an international language. Furthermore, since the students are all attending theoretical programs in Swedish Upper Secondary School, future studies as well as future jobs are also predicted as main reasons for their interest in learning
the language. The hypothesis regarding the diagnostic test is that the majority of the students will score rather high on the test based on how English is being taught in Swedish schools as well as the presence of English in Swedish society in general.
Pintrich and Schunk (2002) discuss how there are many definitions of the term motivation and that there are many different opinions regarding its exact meaning. The term “motivation” comes from the Latin verb “movere” which means “to move”. The idea of movement is reflected in common ideas about motivation as being something that gets us going, keeps us going and makes us finish tasks that we have been assigned. Motivation has been connected to inner forces, enduring traits, sets of beliefs and effects and to behavioral responses to stimuli. Pintrich and Schunk (2002) offer a wide-ranging definition of motivation based on learners’ thoughts and beliefs, which is considered by many researchers to be essential to motivation: “Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained” (Pintrich and Schunk 2002, p 5). Pintrich and Schunk (2002) further discuss motivation as being a process more than being a product. In the process, motivation is not seen directly but we infer it in choice of tasks, effort and persistence. Motivation also includes goals that encourage action. Cognitive views regarding motivation are bound together in their emphasis in the importance of having goals. Goals are not always formed in a good way and chances are that they will change as an individual gains more experience but the main point is that people have something in mind that they either try to avoid or to achieve. Motivation also requires physical or mental activity. Physical activity includes for example effort and persistence while mental activity includes cognitive actions such as planning, rehearsing, solving problems and assessing improvement. Many activities that students take part in are targeted toward reaching their goals. As a final point, motivated activity is instigated and s ustained. Starting toward a goal is important but it can also be difficult because it forces us to make a commitment to change and take a step forward towards something new. A crucial part of motivational processes is to sustain action since many of our goals are long-term such as earning a college degree and getting a good job. Much of what is known about motivation comes from outlining how people act in response to the challenges, difficulties, problems, failures and setbacks they are faced with while they try to achieve their long-term goals (Pintrich and Schunk 2002, p 5).
framework for understanding environmental observations and therefore helps to connect research and education (Pintrich and Schunk 2002, p 7). The study of motivation when it comes to learning a second language has a long history. As a consequence of the cognitive revolution that took place in the last decades, many influential cognitive motivation theories were proposed in mainstream psychology. Soon after that, researchers within the field of second language learning started to use those theories to get a better understanding regarding motivation in the field (Dörnyei 2003, p 7). In the following, three of those cognitive approaches will be briefly discussed.
Pintrich and Schunk (2002) explains that self-efficacy refers to perceived capabilities for learning or performing actions at designated levels. People who hold low self-efficacy for accomplishing a task may try to avoid it while someone who believes that they are capable are likely to take part. Especially when difficulties arise, efficacious students will work harder and persist longer than those students who doubt themselves (Pintrich and Schunk 2002, p 161). Schunk and Pajares ( 2009 ) discuss how students who feel more effective when it comes to learning should be more prone to engage in self-regulation including setting goals, creating an effective environment for learning, monitoring their comprehension and assessing their progress when it comes to reaching goals. Self-efficacy can also be influenced by the outcomes of behaviors such as achievement and goal-progress and by input from the environment, for example, by feedback from teachers. Performances that can be seen as successful should increase self-efficacy while those seen as a failure should lower it. Occasional failure or success after many successes or failures should not have much impact (Schunk and Pajares 2009, p 36). Schunk and Pajares state that by observing others succeed, self-efficacy can be raised and therefore help motivate them to take on the task because they are apt to believe that if others can do it-they can as well. However, an increased self-efficacy can be negatively affected if it is followed by performance failure. People who observe other people fail may then believe that they do not possess the competence to succeed and therefore keep them from taking on the task. They discuss that individuals can also create and develop self-efficacy beliefs as a result of social encouragements such as “I know you can do it”. Persuaders are an important factor when it comes to the development of an individual’s self- efficacy and an effective persuader must be able to nurture people’s beliefs in their capabilities while at the same time assuring them that success is within reach. They further on
state that positive feedback can raise an individuals’ self-efficacy but the increase will not maintain if they later perform sub standardly_._ Positive persuasion may work to empower and inspire, negative persuasions can work to decline and remove self-efficacy (Schunk and Pajares 2009, p 36, 37). Alderman (2008) claims that one of the main assumptions underlying self-efficacy is that there is a difference between having the skills to perform a task and using the skills in different situations, which will affect motivation. He discusses that there are two types of expectancies regarding possible outcomes, outcome expectancy and self-efficacy expectancy. An outcome expectancy can be explained as an individual’s anticipation that a specific action can lead to a certain positive or negative outcome, for example: “If I use effective learning strategies I will make at least a B in this course”. A self-efficacy expectancy is an individual’s preconception of his or her capability to perform the skills, actions or persistence required for the given outcome. For example: will I actually be able to use the learning strategies needed to make a B in this course? The most influential factor is the efficacy expectancy which indicates how effective one will be? The beliefs of personal efficacy are the fundamental element of agency which refers to actions carried out with intent. They regulate our choices, our behavior and effort, as well as how one persist. These self-efficacy indicators are important factors affecting motivation in academic tasks (Alderman 2008, p 69, 70). Alderman outlines that it is different from self-esteem and self-concept which are more task, domain and context specific rather than general (Alderman 2008, p 70). Collins carried out a study of research which demonstrates how the belief one holds about ability influences strategies. Collins selected children at low, medium as well as at high levels of math ability and then gave them difficult problems to work out. In each group there were children who were confident about their math ability and there were also children who were insecure regarding their ability. The children’s beliefs about their capability and not their actual ability turned out to be the factor that distinguished the problem-solving strategies used by children in each group. The confident children chose to revise more problems and they were quicker to abandon ineffective strategies than those children who had doubts about their ability. Perceived self-efficacy turned out to be a better predictor of positive attitudes toward mathematics than what actual ability was. This established that self-efficacy is not just a reflection of someone’s ability but the actual beliefs one holds about that ability (as cited in Alderman, 2008, p. 70, 71) Moreover, Alderman points out that people may perform poorly
that if the majority of a class fails a test, students are likely to blame the failure to the difficulty of the task and not to their own ability. Nevertheless, if one student failed and the rest of the classmates got an A or a B, that student is likely to believe that the failure was due to his or her own low ability.
When it comes to goal and goal setting theory, Alderman discusses how goals are “something that the person wants to achieve” and “goal setting theory assumes that human action is directed by conscious goals and intentions’ (Alderman 2008, p 106). Alderman outlines goals as cognitive representations of a future event and therefore motivation can be influenced through five processes:
proficiency scores in school. Nevertheless, the tests were shaped towards formal second language learning and when teaching practice changed and started to include practice in communication, the tests became old-fashioned. Different studies have shown that both the MLAT and PLAB indicate a high level of correlation between intelligence and controlled language production but low correlation when it comes to free oral production as well to communicative skills in general. (De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor 2005, p 70). Genesee carried out an investigation among students in French Immersion Programmes in Canada, who found that intelligence was related to the development of French second language learning when it came to reading, vocabulary and grammar while it was unrelated to the students’ oral production skills (as cited Lightbown and Spada 2006, p 57).
Age and its importance when it comes to learning a second language is something that has been extensively investigated. Lenneberg’s critical period hypothesis has been strongly connected to the age factor. The hypothesis states that it is not possible to learn a second language in a native-like way if the learning process begins after a critical period-puberty. This standpoint is mostly linked to learning the phonological system of the second language. The critical period hypothesis claims that as the human brain gradually matures it loses its plasticity. The maturation process is called cerebral lateralization which is a process of specialization concerning the hemisphere. Lenneberg claimed that once this process is completed, the human brain would not be able to pick up a new language system (as cited in De Bot, Lowie and Verspoor 2005, p 65 & 67). Lightbown and Spada (2006) discuss how it has been frequently observed that most children from immigrant families eventually will speak the language of their new community with a native-like fluency while their parents mostly do not. Adult learners of a second language may have the capability to communicate successfully but differences in word-choice, accent and grammar often distinguish them from native speakers and second language speakers who started to learn the language at a young age (Lightbown and Spada 2006, p 68). Further on, they declare how the conditions for language learning can vary. For example, young learners may have more opportunities to hear as well as speak the language in an environment where they feel secure and do not feel the pressure of communicating grammatically correct. Older learners are more often in situations where they must use a more complex language (Lightbown and Spada 2006, p 68).
Ellis (1994) states that language teachers have already acknowledged the importance of learners’ motivation and occasionally explaining their own sense of failure to the students’ lack of motivation. Second language acquisition studies consider motivation a key factor when it comes to learning a second language. There have been differences though in the way that teachers and researchers have conceptualized ‘motivation’. Skehan outlines four different hypotheses in an attempt to explain motivation from a non-theoretical view:
McKay (2002) argues that some people are defining an international language as being equal to a language that has a large number of native speakers. If that is the case, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, Spanish which together with English are the five most spoken mother tongues in the world, could be international languages as well. However, McKay states that unless those languages are spoken by a great number of native speakers of other languages, the language cannot function as a language of international communication. Looked upon from that perspective, English is the international language used for wider communication to an extent that no other language can be compared. In many areas, English is the tool of communication between people from different countries as well as between individuals from the same country. McKay states that from this standpoint, English can be seen as an international language not only from a global sense but also from a local (McKay 2002, p 5). Crystal (1997) states that: ‘a language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country’ (Crystal 1997, p 2). He discusses how a language, to be able to achieve such status, must be used by people in countries that do not have English as their mother tongue and they must give it a place in their societies. This can according to Crystal be done in two ways. Firstly, a language can be made as the official language of a country where it will be used as a tool of communication in areas such as the educational system, the media, the law courts and in government. In the second way, a language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching although the language itself has no official status. Crystal argues that one of the main reasons for the spread of English is that it has repeatedly been in the right place at the same time. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries English was the language of the leading colonial nation-Britain. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was the language of the leader of the industrial revolution- also Britain. In the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth it was the language of the leading economic power-the USA. As a result, when new technologies brought new linguistic opportunities, English emerged as a first-rank language in industries which affected all aspects of the society-the press, advertising, broadcasting, motion pictures, sound recording, transport and communications. (Crystal 1997, p 110-111)
Further on, Crystal claims how at the same time the world was formatting networks of international alliances that were in need of a lingua franca and English was the clear first choice. English became during the first part of the twentieth century the leading language of international political, academic as well as of community meetings. McKay (2002) discusses what factors that presently can be related to the demand of English learning and its role as an international language and she points to different domains. For example, she refers to how English is in a global way making different countries negotiate and discuss educational, social, political and economic issues. English dominates the motion picture industry as well as popular music which are the two main mechanisms in the development of global culture, especially amongst young people. Travel and tourism are other factors that McKay claims to contribute to the spread of English she points out that international travelling has a globalizing effect that stresses the need for an international language. Book publishing is another area to which McKay refers to, while stating that more books are published in English than in any other language as well as 84 percent of the Internet servers are English medium. Finally, McKay establishes how to be able to access higher education in many countries, you are reliant on your knowledge of English (McKay 2002, p 17&18). Marko Modiano (2009) emphasizes the importance of recognizing the fact that learners of English today are not learning the language so that they may be able to communicate with native speakers. They are learning it because it will be essential to them in the future in relation to work, education as well as in social activities. In many of these activities, native speakers are not included. Further on, he discusses how many different languages that are spoken and pursued in education within the EU, but there is one language, English, that is the most useful language when speakers with different languages interact (Modiano 2009, p 58&59). Modiano claims that the spread of English across the EU is linguistically unique and states that; Never before has one language been so widespread among the general population, taken such a prevalent place in education at all levels, had such presence in information services such as printed media, film, radio and television, been so prominent in music and entertainment, as well as the Internet, and also serve as a contact language with people from throughout the world. (Modiano 2009 p 72-73)
In this section, the participants of this study will be presented as well as the research method that was used in the attempt to reach the purpose of this study.
Three classes from an upper secondary school have participated in this research. They are all first graders and are currently taking English 5 and they are all attending a theoretical program. Since this study is based on a quantitative method of research, three classes would generate a sufficient number of participants. All three classes were given information about the intended and anyone who did not feel comfortable about participating, was given the opportunity to decline. All students present agreed to take part. All students who answered the questionnaire also completed a diagnostic test. They gave their approval to a study of their results regarding the diagnostic test they had done. They were also informed that they would be anonymous in the study.
This study is based on a quantitative method which includes a questionnaire. Trost (2001) claims that if you are trying to find a pattern or if you are trying to understand something, a quantitative investigation is preferable (Trost Jan 2001, p 23). Ejvegård (2004) also states that when you are trying to bring out attitudes, different types of tastes and opinions, a questionnaire is the most suitable approach. Further on, he discusses how the questionnaire needs to be well formed and not too extensive, because the more questions you ask, the risk of getting less answers increases (Ejvegård 2004, p 55). When it comes to research based on questionnaires, Trost (2001) talks about open or closed answering alternatives. An open answering alternative means that the person who answers has the possibility to write his or her answer with their own words. A closed answering alternative has already given answering alternatives from which the participant can choose from. A disadvantage with open answering alternatives can be that some people find it hard to express themselves in writing and therefore they do not answer the question (Trost 2001, p 71&72).
The questionnaire consists of six questions:
The diagnostic test is a test that each student has to take when they start studying English at this school. The reason for this is that the teachers want to find out what level the students are at when it comes to their English skills and if there are students who need extra support to be able to pass the course. Initially when the school started to use this diagnostic test approximately 14 years ago, it was also meant to help the teachers divide the students into different studying groups, depending on how they scored on the test. The highest score is 243. Students who scored between 120-140 points were the lower group, students who scored between 140-180 became the intermediate group and those who scored 180 and higher became the advanced group. Students who scored 120 points and lower, were given extra support. The test includes reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary. The vocabulary part consists of 61 different sentences where the students are asked to fill in a missing word. They have three different options to choose from. The grammar part is structured in the same
