Motivation in SLA among L2 Learners in Colombia (a research essay/ Spring 2024)
- seemichoudry
- 5 hours ago
- 18 min read
Introduction
The aim of this study is to explore the role motivation plays in second language acquisition (SLA) among English learners, L2 learners, in Colombia. When considering motivation in the context of SLA, the main idea is to understand what moves a student to make choices which will ultimately increase their ability to create a goal and maintain continued effort toward that goal, resulting in successful, and sustained, SLA. In the past, the focus has been placed on the age of the L2 learner but recent research and studies continue to demonstrate that motivation is a more critical factor in SLA than age is.
Researchers in SLA are now placing more attention on the social, psychological, and contextual nature which all play a crucial role in early and late second language learners. When considering these factors, the focus ought to be on L2 learners' process, self-perception, timescale, experience, classroom environment, and their end goal with SLA. Students who are acquiring a second language for the purpose of gaining employment and advancing their professional career often have higher stakes. On the other hand, students who are required to learn a second language based on their school curriculum may view SLA with drudgery and obligation.
Expanding beyond quantitative research by engaging in a qualitative methodology, this research aims to explore how psychological factors play a fundamental role in SLA for Colombian L2 learners. By taking a more holistic approach, this study is guided by the idea that language acquisition and retention is connected to both student motivation and the classroom environment. The societal and educational relevance of this study relates back to understanding the L2 learner when they are in the process of acquiring a second language. For educators, this study can help shape their classrooms by improving L2 curriculum to fit the practical and psychological needs of their students. Additionally, by integrating the Possible Selves Theory (Dörnyei et al., 2013) into the study, L2 educators earn a better understanding of what L2 learners' hopes and fears are through SLA and how this influences their behavior in their learning environment. The framework in this study will also explore the terminology examined by Mostafa Papi, comparing Regulatory Fit Theory against Regulatory Focus Theory (Papi, 2018) in terms of how prevention versus promotion affects L2 learners’ motivation while completing an English course in Colombia.
The general approach that will be used in this investigation is to study English language learners in Colombia through administering a self-report questionnaire. One group of L2 learners will be taking an English course in a vocational school as a requirement while the other group of L2 learners will be taking an English course in order to secure a job which requires English proficiency. A self-report questionnaire will be administered at the start and end of the English course. Based on the results of this questionnaire, educators can assess student needs and integrate more customized approaches in the SLA classroom, therefore, enhancing teachers’ motivational strategies.
Keywords: motivation, Possible Selves Theory, motivational strategies, Regulatory Fit Theory, Regulatory Focus Theory
Background
Over the past decades, research has been shifting from studying the age of L2 learners to studying the social, psychological, and contextual factors that affect the SLA process. These factors all play an important role in the motivation level L2 learners bring to the classroom. Historically, while age has been examined as a critical consideration for the success of SLA, it has become increasingly evident that it is not the only factor that affects the progress of L2 learners. In studying the relationship between age and motivation, the results favor “late starters” whose motivation is strongly linked to goals and future-oriented (Pfenninger et al., 2016). Pfenninger and Singleton’s research demonstrated that motivation tends to increase when an individual gets older, therefore, so does the rate of SLA. While age-related research is important, their study indicates that another important perspective to consider is when learners are happy (a psychological factor) versus when they are struggling or facing challenges which inhibit their achievement in SLA.
This sort of research makes a strong case that greater attention has been placed on AO (age of onset) in relation to its connection to SLA, which is not entirely merited. Here, Pfenninger and Singleton explore how the age of onset (AO) is not the main influence in language acquisition and how late-starters demonstrate long-term achievement in SLA. This study also emphasizes the role that motivation plays in the SLA process. Overall, their study uses a more holistic approach, incorporating multi-faceted and often hidden variables, when examining long-term acquisition which goes beyond AO. Variables include, but are not limited to, school location, resources, class size, learner expectations, attitudes, and beliefs.
In the context of this study, Pfenninger and Singleton’s close examination of age and how it factors into SLA is relevant because two groups will be researched here, one group will be younger than the other. However, the older group will likely have different psychological factors influencing their L2 journey. Since the older group must pass the English course in order to acquire a job, their stakes, and therefore their variables differ from the younger group. The younger group must complete the English course as a requirement for their education, in the same way a general education requirement is part of the undergraduate curriculum in the United States.
When considering the role of motivation in second language acquisition, some research takes these variables one step further by analyzing them against Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Here, the researchers use the framework of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to determine whether Chinese ESL students have their basic needs fulfilled so they can aspire for greater ambitions, i.e. SLA. Branching off the psychological framework offered in other research connecting motivation to SLA, this framework asserts that every human has five categories of needs: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. From this perspective, when these basic needs are fulfilled, L2 learners will aim higher, and their motivation will increase (Zhao, 2021).
This research has implications for students and teachers of a second language, focusing on the classroom environment and helps to distinguish between intrinsic and integrative motivations. “Intrinsic and integrative motivations are also different because intrinsic motivation is about the inner fulfillment and self-satisfaction while integrative motivation focuses the identity of joining another foreign community. These different types of motivation work differently towards the same goal that is prompting students to concentrate themselves and immerse themselves in SLA” (Zhao, 2021, p.85). Ultimately, higher levels of intrinsic motivation, international stimuli, relative to extrinsic motivation leads to higher levels of SLA. This research is important because it uses a holistic approach of understanding the needs of ESL students to inform a more suitable learning environment for SLA, therefore, there are implications for the L2 learners and teachers.
Taking into consideration the role of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a self-report questionnaire must incorporate questions which assess whether L2 learners’ basic needs are being met. Additionally, for the purpose of this study, certain questions ought to be incorporated which determine the main reason students are acquiring English as a second language. The research completed by Zhao is important for this study because it provides more nuance to the current qualitative research, demonstrating the varying components involved in students’ motivation in an ESL classroom. Since this study involves researching the difference in motivation between students who must take ESL as a requirement and students who enroll in ESL classes because they are seeking a professional opportunity, there is an interest in the role instrumental motivation plays during the SLA process. Also, gaining a better understanding of what is taking place with L2 learners inside and outside the classroom will ultimately help educators build a learning environment that is human-centered and fits the diverse needs of L2 learners. If educators are required to take action relevant to these needs, this study can examine whether these actions positively influenced L2 learning in the self-report post-course questionnaire.
The inextricable link between the motivation of a teacher and the motivation of an L2 learner is often excluded in the research studying motivation and SLA. The research conducted by Moskovsky et al. provides “compelling evidence that teachers’ motivational behaviors cause enhanced motivation in second language learners” (Moskovsky et al., 2013, p.34). In their work, Moskovsky and his fellow researchers demonstrate that teachers play a role in the learning experience of their L2 students by incorporating motivational strategies in their classrooms.
In order to define motivational strategies, Moskovsky’s study references the definition of renowned linguist, Zoltán Dörnyei. “Dörnyei (2001) defines motivational strategies as ‘the motivational influences that are consciously exerted to achieve some systematic and enduring positive effect’...propose that motivational strategies fall into two categories: (a) instructional interventions applied by the teacher to elicit and stimulate student motivation and (b) self-regulating strategies used purposefully by individual learners to manage the level of their own motivation” (Moskovsky et al., 2013, p.36). Moskovsky’s research focuses specifically on the interventions teachers apply to promote student motivation in the classroom.
Basically, there is enough evidence that demonstrates a strong positive correlation between teachers’ practices and their students’ learning as it relates to motivation. In Moskovsky et al.’s study, they employed an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group utilized the ten most highly ranked motivational teaching strategies while the control group had teachers using traditional teaching methods. The results demonstrated that students’ motivation increased with the experimental group most likely because of the experimental treatment in this group and less traditional teaching methods. In other words, students responded positively to the motivational teaching strategies as their SLA motivation and success increased by the end of the course.
The results of Moskovsky et al.’s study provide compelling evidence that teachers’ motivational behaviors cause an increase in motivation among second language learners and, therefore, emphasizes the importance of teacher training as an essential tool to motivate learners and increase their SLA in and beyond the classroom. This study will incorporate the findings of Moskovsky et al.’s research because it offers clear tools to incorporate in the classroom in order to enhance the motivation among L2 students. In the proposed study, teachers will be trained on motivational strategies such as breaking routine, showing students their progress, making learning tasks more attractive and the efficacy of these strategies will be examined through the post-course questionnaire.
To better understand the kind of motivation that drives these L2 learners in Colombia in two different contexts, this study will integrate the framework of regulatory focus theory and regulatory fit theory. Based on regulatory focus theory, two different motivational systems exist: the promotion system and the prevention system. The promotion system is concerned with accomplishments, advancement, and success while the prevention system is connected to a sense of duty, responsibility and fulfilling obligations. regulatory fit theory posits that individuals will likely be more engaged in an activity when there is a promotion associated with this activity (Papi, 2018). So, as it relates to the study proposed here, one group of L2 learners is required to complete an English course as a general requirement included in their curriculum. The only way they can graduate will be by completing the English course. The second group of L2 learners will be taking an English course because it is the only way for them to advance toward their professional goals. While the former group is associated with the prevention system, the latter group would ascribe to the promotion system.
The reason Papi’s research is relevant to this study is because it provides an orientation to the motivation the L2 students bring at the beginning to the English language course. Here, the goal is to determine whether this orientation is fixed or can be influenced as the English language course progresses. While an L2 student may enroll in the English course associating more closely with the prevention system, ostensibly, he/she can complete the program with a higher awareness of advancement and accomplishment, linking them to the promotion system.
The research completed by Papi complements Moskovsky et al.’s study because, if motivational strategies are employed in the SLA classroom, the orientation of the L2 student’s motivation can change. This study will examine how the English language learners’ motivation can be influenced positively or can remain stagnant. Through the pre-course and post-course questionnaires, the self-reporting of students will provide evidence demonstrating whether the mindset of students can change from the beginning to the end of the course and regardless of whether the course is required or not, their personal motivation orientation can still shift in the same way goals do.
In order to better understand the fundamental motivation behind L2 learners, it is critical to explore the research of Zoltán Dörnyei and Letty Chan who apply the Possible Selves Theory to the domain of SLA. “Dörnyei has proposed a parsimonious motivation construct made up of three constituents: Ideal L2 Self, Ought-to L2 Self, L2 Learning Experience” (Dörnyei et al., 2013, p. 438). Each one of these three constituents concerns varying degrees of the L2 self-perception and to what extent their motives will drive the gap between their current self and future self. In other words, there are several driving forces behind the motivation of an L2 learner which can stem from an internal desire to use the acquired language effectively, social pressures from the learners’ environment, and the lived experience of engaging in the SLA learning process.
What Dörnyei and Chan propose in their study is that if an L2 learner can envision their future self, the intensity of their motivation will be impacted. So, for instance, if a student can picture themself participating in a debate, competently speaking the L2 language, writing emails and using the L2 language in a variety of ways, their L2 motivation can increase. What sets this study apart is that the researchers also investigate the claim that the level of L2 motivation is partially dependent on the learners’ capacity to create mental imagery.
The results of Dörnyei and Chan’s study demonstrated strong, positive correlations between sets of ideal self-guides and learners’ effort in L2 learning. The researchers concluded that the mental imagery is certainly associated with future self-guides, justifying the use of the term “vision” when referring to this future self. This study is critical for L2 instructors because it introduces the concept of imagery training or guided imagery on increasing L2 motivation by assisting students in generating personal visions while enduring the challenges of learning a second language. Again, by understanding the psychological factors of the L2 learners, educators can help students envision their future selves, therefore, mitigating the challenges that naturally come with acquiring a second language. Dörnyei and Chan’s study is important because it introduces the language of future self-guides and offers guidance on how to incorporate the “I can imagine myself” language into the motivation questionnaire that will be used for the study being proposed. The research also provides the idea of suggesting motivation through including language of the future self into the questionnaire. So, by conducting a questionnaire that allows L2 learners to visualize their future self, this can increase their motivation in the classroom. This study will develop a more comprehensive pre-course and post-course questionnaire which offers the pedagogical suggestions for ESL instructors to consider when helping learners visualize their future selves. In the end, there is no denying the motivational power of the ideal L2 self.
The following research questions will be addressed in this study:
Do L2 learners who are attending the English course as a requirement to acquire a job demonstrate higher motivation than L2 learners who are completing the English course as a general requirement as a part of their educational curriculum?
Can motivation change over time while L2 learners are attending an English course?
Do motivational strategies employed by EFL teachers positively affect the motivation of L2 students?
Do L2 learners who have a positive future self-image demonstrate higher motivation?
Methodological Approach
In order to carry out this investigation, participants will be selected from the Colombian Escuela de Aprendizaje (SENA) vocational school students. The other group will be students from a call center in Bogotá, Colombia enrolled with the English for Work (EFW) program. The EFW program offers an English course which, once successfully completed, participants acquire a full-time job at an affiliated call center. The students at the SENA school will be specifically from the vocational school associated with tourism–these students are seeking a job in tourism after graduating. The two distinguishing characteristics between these groups of participants is that the group from the SENA vocational school is required to take an English course as it is a general educational requirement. On the other hand, while the Colombian L2 students who are enrolled in the English course under EFW are also required to successfully pass the English course, if they do not attain proficiency (B2 or C1) in English, they will not be able to secure a job at the call center.
The study will include 150 Colombian students enrolled in an English course, none of the participants are native English speakers. The Colombian students from the SENA vocational school will be between the ages of 18-21 while the students coming from the EFW program will be between the ages of 25-30. Students will be divided into groups of 25. Two groups of 25 students from the SENA school and two groups of 25 students from the EFW program will attend the ten-week English course where instructors will incorporate motivational strategies. The remaining 50 students will be comprised of 25 students from SENA and 25 students from EFW. For these remaining students, they will be a part of the control group and their English instructors will use traditional teaching methods. The study will involve six EFL instructors, four instructors will be trained on motivational strategies to integrate into the English course they are teaching, and the remaining two instructors will not be trained.
A motivation questionnaire will be administered among students at the beginning and at the end of the ten-week English course. The self-report questionnaire will be designed to measure the following categories: the L2 learners’ overall attitudes toward the EFL course, self-confidence, future ideal self, and the motivational disposition of students. The questions that will be used for the self-report questionnaire will include items that can be found in Appendix A-B in addition to questions found in Table 7 of the Dörnyei et al. study (Dörnyei et al., 2013, p. 452) in which students will have the option to respond with yes/no. To keep the self-report questionnaire concise, the top 30 items will be selected that appropriately represent the aforementioned categories. Questions will be selected from previous motivation questionnaires designed by Moskovsky et al. and Dewaele et al.’s study “The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom”. This study will follow the example provided by Moskovsky et al. and Dörnyei et al. as it will be qualitative.
For the experimental group, where EFL instructors will integrate motivational strategies, instructors will be trained on the following strategies which were ranked the top ten strategies based on the Moskovsky et al. study (Moskovsky et al., 2013, p. 41-42):
Break the routine of the classroom by varying learning tasks and the presentation format.
Show students that you care about their progress.
Show students that you accept and care about them.
Recognize students’ effort and achievement.
Be mentally and physically available to respond to your students’ academic needs in the classroom.
Increase the amount of English you use in the classroom.
Make learning tasks more attractive by adding new and humorous elements to them.
Remind students of the importance of English as a global language and the usefulness of mastering the skills of this language.
Relate the subject content and learning tasks to the everyday experiences and backgrounds of the students.
Consistently encourage students by drawing their attention to the fact that you believe in their effort to learn and their capabilities to succeed.
Throughout the ten-week course, EFL instructors who have been trained on these motivational strategies will observe one another using a classroom observation instrument. The classroom observation instrument will be used to assess the quality of the teachers’ teaching practices and appropriate integration of motivational strategies. These observations will take place two times during the ten-week course, one time between week 4-5 and the second time between week 8-9.
As previously mentioned, the questions that will be used for the self-report questionnaire can be found in Appendix A-B and Table 7 of the Dörnyei et al. The questionnaire questions are currently in English but will be translated into Spanish so students can self-report accurately. All questions in the questionnaire will be multiple choice.
Table 1, below, summarizes the logic and feasibility for the study being proposed. Since the proposed study is qualitative, the response options for certain questions currently include a 1-7 scale where 1 represents “very untrue” and 7 is “very true”. These questions will be altered for the purposes of this proposed study with the following options: (1) “very untrue”, (2) “untrue”, (3) “neither untrue or true”, (4) “true” and (5) “very true.” The purpose for this alteration is so that options translate more understandably into Spanish and will, therefore, be more straightforward for the participants. For the questions related to a positive (or ideal) self-image, students will have the option to respond with yes or no. Analysis will be conducted based on the responses in self-report questionnaire administered at the beginning and end of the English course.
Table 1
Summary of research questions, data, and analysis method for proposed study
Research Question | Data Used to Address the Question | Data Analysis Method |
1. Do L2 learners who are attending the English course as a requirement to acquire a job demonstrate higher motivation than L2 learners who are completing the English course as a general requirement as a part of their educational curriculum? | The data that will be used to address this question will be the responses in the self-report motivation questionnaire administered at the start of the English course. The questions which specifically relate to motivation and future self-image will be highlighted. | Since there will be 75 L2 students from the SENA school and 75 L2 students from the EFW program, two tables will be created to represent each group. In both tables, each question will be listed next to their numerical responses, where appropriate. For questions with a yes/no response, a percentage will be generated demonstrating the amount of yes responses and no responses. |
2. Can motivation change over time while L2 learners are attending an English course? | The data that will be used to address this question will be the responses in the self-report motivation questionnaire administered at the start and end of the English course. The questions which specifically relate to motivation will be highlighted. | The analysis method that will be used here will require the responses from SENA and EFW students at the start and at the end of the English course. Special attention will be placed to see whether there is a notable change in responses over the 10-week period which demonstrate and increase in motivation. |
3. Do motivational strategies employed by L2 teachers positively affect the motivation of L2 students? | The data that will be used to address this question will be the responses in the self-report motivation questionnaire administered at the start and end of the English course with special attention on the control and experimental group. | The data analysis method that will be used here will compare the responses from L2 students in the control group against the experimental group. Any significant difference in responses will be important. |
4. Do L2 learners who have a positive future self-image demonstrate higher motivation? | The data that will be used to address this question will be self-report questionnaire questions that specifically relate to positive future self-image and motivation. The responses that will be used will only be from the questionnaire administered at the beginning of the English course. | The data analysis method that will be used to answer this question will be motivation questions that demonstrate a favorable (high) response compared against future self-image responses, paying special attention to notice any patterns that connect motivation and future self-image. |
As demonstrated in Table 1, in order to address the research questions data will be used from the self-report questionnaire L2 students complete at the beginning and the end of the English course. In some instances, only data from the self-report questionnaire taken at the beginning of the English course will be used. Otherwise, in most instances, data will be used from the pre-course and post-course questionnaires to track progress and pay close attention to any changes in student responses that depict a correlation between high motivation and increased success in SLA. The experimental and control group data will be most useful in analyzing the efficacy of EFL teachers incorporating motivational strategies in their classrooms. Of course, the final set of data that will be reviewed will be who successfully passes the English course but the most critical information for this study is how students self-report in the questionnaires.
Implications
By completing this research, as an EFL instructor, I will develop a stronger understanding related to motivation and SLA in the classroom. Since I was an EFL instructor in Bogotá ten years ago, I taught both in the SENA vocational school for tourism and was also an instructor at the EFW program. Through anecdotal evidence and observation, I noticed that students in the EFW program were far more driven and successful than the students who were at the SENA vocational school. Since then, I have always wondered why there was such a discrepancy and completing a study like the one proposed here will give me more insight into the reasons that factors that play into the behavior of L2 learners in the SLA classroom.
Since I do plan on teaching English as a second/foreign language in Latin America and, perhaps, in Asia, this study will be helpful before starting any English course because I can administer this survey with my students to better understand the environment they are coming from and what their goals and/or obstacles have been so far in achieving them. Most importantly, a study like this is useful because it would guide the English curriculum and contextualize the content in a way that is reflective of the information that is revealed through the post-course self-report questionnaires. Additionally, by integrating motivational strategies as an EFL instructor, I have can notice any changes or progress among students that take place in response to using these strategies.
I believe that the future self-image is a critical element that is often missing in EFL courses offered to adults because L2 learners need to envision their best, most successful self. In many cases and, in my experience, the L2 learners in my classroom came from a low-income bracket so the vision of their future selves is limited by their socioeconomic status. However, a report like this can help facilitate broadening horizons and envisioning a more ample world of opportunity for L2 learners. Finally, for EFL instructors, the report generated from this study is also significant because it will demonstrate that educators can influence their students’ motivation, therefore, sustaining long-term success in second language acquisition.
References
Dewaele, J.-M., & MacIntyre, P. D. (2014). The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 4(2), 237–274. https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2014.4.2.5
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. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12005
Ellis, R. (2019). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford University Press.
Hall, J. K. (2019). Essentials of SLA for L2 teachers: A transdisciplinary framework. Routledge.
Moskovsky, C., Alrabai, F., Paolini, S., & Ratcheva, S. (2013). The Effects of Teachers’ Motivational Strategies on Learners’ Motivation: A Controlled Investigation of Second Language Acquisition. Language Learning, 63(1), 34–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2012.00717.x
Papi, M. (2018). MOTIVATION AS QUALITY: REGULATORY FIT EFFECTS ON INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 40(4), 707–730. doi:10.1017/S027226311700033X
Pfenninger, S. E., & Singleton, D. (2016). Affect trumps age: A person-in-context relational view of age and motivation in SLA. Second Language Research, 32(3), 311–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658315624476
Zhao, C. (n.d.). The role of motivation in second language acquisition --- a view from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of second language acquisition for Chinese ESL Learners. Frontiers in Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.25236/fer.2021.041415