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Does length of stay matter? The case of Chinese immigrants' motivation to learn English
Ruth Ming Har Wong
Department of English, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China E-mail: wongmh@ied.edu.hk
Received: 1 April 2008 Reviewmg editor: Andr-ey G Kirill°v p onUne: 1 June 2008
^ Accepted: 15 May 2008 '
Abstract
Numerous studies have been carried out to investigate motivation; however, no research has been done to evaluate how the length of stay has an impact on the second language learning pattern. This study, therefore, investigated how the length of stay places impact on a group of Chinese immigrant students' motivation to learn English in Hong Kong. It is hoped that an understanding of Chinese immigrant students' motivation to learn English in relations to the length of stay would have implications on current teaching and learning practices, based on the adopted motivational theory and that these would enhance learners' motivation to learn English while adjusting to and integrating with the new learning environment.
Keywords
motivation to learn English; Chinese immigrants; Hong Kong; Dornyei
For citation
Wong, Ruth Ming Har. 2008. "Does length of stay matter? The case of Chinese immigrants' motivation to learn English." Language. Text. Society 2 (1): e15-e23. https://ltsj.online/2008-02-1-wong. (Journal title at the time of publication: SamaraAltLinguo E-Journal.)
1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Dornyei's (1998) work has been considered as one of the most influential contemporary motivational constructs in second language (L2) learning (see Table 1). He reviewed over 80 relevant L2 studies and combined most of the major motivational theories and constructs into his motivation framework (Wong 2008). Dornyei's model filled the gaps of Oxford and Shearin's (1994) and Williams and Burden's (1997) work. Wong (2008) also added two important motivational components that had not yet been considered—1) the role of parents in students' L2 learning motivation (Wong 2008) and (2) the role of culture in influencing L2 learning motivation. The addition of these two components will make Dornyei's motivational framework more comprehensive for the evaluation and investigation of how to motivate Chinese immigrant students to learn English.
Table 1 shows culture-specific and parent-specific motivational component added to Dornyei's conceptual framework, which is to be used as the conceptual framework of this study.
Table 1. Culture-specific and parent-specific motivational component added to Dornyei's conceptual framework
Learner Level
Language Level
Integrative motivational subsystem Instrumental motivational subsystem Need for achievement Self-confidence * Language use anxiety *Perceived L2 Competence
*Casual attributions *Self-efficacy
*
*
Learning Situation Level
Teach er-Specific
motivational
components
Course-specific
motivation
components
Interest (in the course) Relevance (of the course to one's needs)
Expectancy (of success) Satisfaction (one has in the outcome) Affiliative motive (to please the teacher)
Authority type (autonomy-supporting)
Group-Specific
motivational
components
*Parent-Specific
motivation
components
*Culture-Specific
motivation
component
Direct Socialization of Motivation
*Modeling
*Task Presentation
*Feedback
Goal-orientations
Norm & Reward System
Group Cohesion
Classroom Goal Structure
Education background—English
proficiency
Financial support
Affective encouragement
Socio-cultural integration
Note: * New motivation component added to Dornyei's (1998) extended framework.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Design of Research Methods
This study aimed to investigate how Chinese immigrant students' motivation in relations to age differences affected the teaching and learning of English as a second language. A 55-item questionnaire based on a six-point rating scale was set for Chinese immigrant students to elicit their responses (6 for strongly agree, 5 for agree, 4 for tend to agree, 3 for tend to disagree, 2 for disagree, 1 for strongly disagree). Mean scores between 3.56—6 would be considered as holding strong/positive motivation to learn English; mean scores between 1—3.55 would be considered as holding weak/negative motivation.
The questionnaire included items on different motivational constructs at different levels, based on the conceptual framework mentioned in the last section. They were language level, learner level and learning situation level. Three statements were constructed for each subcomponent under each motivation dimension. Items on parental education background and family income were also included in the questionnaire. The questionnaires administered to students were in Chinese, the language with which the students were most familiar, in order to avoid the problems of language barrier and communication breakdown.
2.3. Participants
The sample in this study comprised a total of 109 secondary school Chinese immigrant students. Among them, 53 were girls and 56 were boys. Participants were all aged between 1319. They were all from Guangdong province and had only been in Hong Kong for less than 3 years. They were invited to respond to the above-mentioned questionnaire.
2.4. Procedures
A pilot study was carried out before the final questionnaire was set. Students completed the Chinese version of the questionnaire. They were also invited to comment on the language and the content of the questionnaire. A reliability test was also carried out to ensure that the questionnaire items were reliable. Several items were amended because the respondents found them vague and the reliability test found certain question items not statistically reliable.
In the main study, all students were gathered in the school hall and filled in the reviewed questionnaire under the researcher's monitoring. The researcher then read the instruction written on the questionnaire. Students were also assured that the information they provided would only serve the purpose of this study. Respondents were reminded that their participation was completely voluntary and all data collected would remain confidential. Informed consent forms were also distributed. Thirty minutes were given to fill in the questionnaire. Statistical analyses were carried out using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
2.5. Data Analysis
Data collected from the questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive analyses (means and standard deviations) were mainly used to project participants' motivation and learning strategies for English learning.
Face-to-face interviews were conducted with an attempt to understand students' responses better in the context of teaching and learning affecting their motivation to learn English in Hong Kong. The qualitative data obtained were translated from the respondents' first language (Cantonese) into English and transcribed for coding.
2.6. Research Questions
This study set the following research questions for testing:
1. Does Chinese immigrant students have stronger motivation to learn English as they stay longer in Hong Kong?
2. How does length of stay affect Chinese immigrant students' motivation to learn English under different levels (language level, leaner level and learning situation level) as they grow older?
3. How does length of stay affect Chinese immigrant students' motivation to learn English under different motivational components (course-, teacher-, group-, parent- and culture-specific motivational components) as they grow older?
3. FINDINGS
Table 2. Year of arrival and student motivation
Year of arrival n Average mean SD
1997 13 3.621 1.254
1998 19 3.650 1.304
1999 8 4.082 1.404
2000 21 4.089 1.145
2001 11 4.014 1.475
2002 12 4.267 1.372
2003 8 4.011 1.208
2004 17 4.329 1.721
According to Table 2, it is clear that Chinese immigrant students who came to Hong Kong before 1999 have weaker motivation to learn English in Hong Kong. Chinese immigrant students who received mean scores higher than 4.000 are those who arrived Hong Kong after 1999. The students who have the strongest motivation to learn English are those who arrived Hong Kong in year 2002 (M: 4.267, SD: 1.372) and 2004 (M: 4.329, SD: 1.721). Students who arrived Hong Kong between 1999 and 2001 all received a mean score around 4.000 which is lower than 2002 and 2004. Even students who arrived in Hong Kong in 2003 do not have as strong a mean as those arrived in 2002 and 2004, the general pattern is clear. The curve below (see figure 1) shows the pattern which gradually goes up.
Table 3. Year of arrival and Chinese immigrant students' motivation at different levels
Motivation dimension Year of arrival n Mean Std. deviation
Language level 1997 13 3.807 1.654
1998 19 3.482 1.317
1999 8 3.854 1.747
2000 21 4.127 1.936
2001 11 4.060 1.889
2002 12 4.125 1.574
2003 8 3.895 1.890
2004 17 4.156 1.468
Learner level 1997 13 3.607 1.902
1998 19 3.865 1.624
1999 8 4.281 1.811
2000 21 4.132 1.544
2001 11 4.189 1.798
2002 12 4.479 1.656
2003 8 4.284 1.766
2004 17 4.625 1.740
1997 13 3.450 1.399
1998 19 3.604 1.678
1999 8 4.109 1.751
Learning situation 2000 21 4.008 1.645
level 2001 11 3.792 1.585
2002 12 4.199 1.218
2003 8 3.857 1.547
2004 17 4.206 1.697
Year of arrival and NAHK students' motivation
5 i
4.5 -
4
Mean
3.5
3 -
2.5 ^-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Year of Arrival
Figure 1. Year of arrival and Chinese immigrant students' motivation
From the above graph, the general pattern of Chinese immigrant students' motivation and its relations to arrival year is shown. Students who came to Hong Kong before 1999 have relatively weak motivation while students who arrived in between 1999 and 2001 have stronger motivation. However, students who arrived in 2002 and 2004 have the strongest motivation. However, this statistical result is not yet conclusive. Further study on how each arrival year relates to different motivational level needs to be addressed.
After testing the general motivation pattern of the participants, it is next the different motivation dimensions to be tested. According to the table 4, Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong in 2004 have the strongest motivation. At learner level, students who arrived in 2004 also enjoy the strongest motivation. At learning situation level, students who arrived in 2004 also have the strongest motivation to learn English in Hong Kong. These are indeed interesting results, Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong in 2004 are the students who are mostly motivated to learn English. This is probably because language is the key to social integration; learning English is most needed when they first arrived Hong Kong.
How Chinese immigrant students' arrival years and their relationships with different motivation sub-components under learning situation is the focus of the next section. A glance at the following table, one can see the results are pointing at different directions which are different from the above. Under the course-specific motivation Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong in 1999 have the highest mean score of 4.173 and it is very close to the students who arrived in 2004 (M: 4.153). Under the teacher-specific motivation, students who came to Hong Kong in 2004 received the highest mean score of all (M: 4.474). Under group-specific motivation, again, Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong in 2004 have the highest mean score (M: 4.367). Under parent-specific motivation, Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong in 2002 have the highest mean score (M: 3.944) which is just above the students who came in 2004 (M: 3.774). Lastly, under culture-specific motivation, students who came in 2002 have the highest mean score (M: 4.032) while students who came in 2004, again, placed second to possess the second highest mean score (M: 3.879).
These interesting results show that students who came to Hong Kong in 2004 have the strongest motivation to learn English though at certain level, their mean scores are placed second highest. Therefore, Chinese immigrant students who came to Hong Kong have the strongest motivation to learn English which again does not support the hypothesis of this study that it is not necessarily the case that Chinese immigrant students have stronger motivation to learn English if they have stayed in Hong Kong long enough.
Table 4. Year of arrival and motivation components
Motivation components Year of arrival n Mean Std. deviation
course-specific motivational components 1997 13 3.239 1.568
1998 19 3.497 1.795
1999 8 4.173 1.875
2000 21 3.902 1.773
2001 11 3.616 1.803
2002 12 4.050 1.311
2003 8 3.638 1.242
2004 17 4.153 1.895
1997 13 3.736 1.987
1998 19 3.859 1.859
1999 8 4.288 1.905
teacher-specific motivational 2000 21 4.352 1.681
2001 11 4.101 1.675
2002 12 4.386 1.546
2003 8 4.187 1.748
2004 17 4.174 0.947
components group-specific motivational components 1997 13 3.621 1.962
1998 19 3.815 1.731
1999 8 4.343 1.846
2000 21 4.206 1.411
2001 11 4.022 1.628
2002 12 4.361 1.377
2003 8 4.145 1.796
2004 17 4.367 1.207
parent-specific motivational components 1997 13 3.145 1.974
1998 19 3.175 1.828
1999 8 3.555 1.910
2000 21 3.505 1.000
2001 11 3.353 1.450
2002 12 3.944 1.792
2003 8 3.361 1.594
2004 17 3.774 1.627
culture-specific motivational components 1997 13 3.186 1.042
1998 19 3.248 1.305
1999 8 3.724 1.547
2000 21 3.551 1.395
2001 11 3.508 1.480
2002 12 4.032 1.847
2003 8 3.636 1.646
2004 17 3.879 1.156
This study proved that the longer the Chinese immigrant students stay in Hong Kong, the stronger the motivation to learn English is. Results found that Chinese immigrant students who arrived in Hong Kong after 1999 enjoyed stronger motivation in learning English especially students who had arrived just in Hong Kong at the point of the data collected. In other words, Chinese immigrant students' motivation may go weaker as time goes by after their arrival in Hong Kong.
References
Dornyei, Zoltan. 1998. "Motivation in Second and Foreign Language Learning." Language Teaching 31 (3): 117-135. https://doi.org/10.1017/s026144480001315x.
Eccles, Jacquelynne S., and Allan Wigfield. 1995. "In the Mind of the Actor: The Structure of Adolescents' Achievement Task Values and Expectancy-Related Beliefs." Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin 21 (3): 215-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295213003.
Williams, Marion, and Robert L. Burden. 1997. Psychology for language teachers: a social constructivist approach. Cambridge language teaching library. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wong, Ruth Ming Har. 2008. "Motivation and English Attainment: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong Students with Different Cultural Backgrounds." The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.3860/taper.v16i1.91.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Author information
Ruth Ming Har Wong is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of English, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China.
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