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30PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
MOTIVATION AS A KEY FACTOR IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
Ahapitova A.
National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine,
Department of English Philology, senior teacher of English
Abstract
Motivation is considered to be a powerful force aimed at achieving certain goals. Throughout the history lots of scientists explore in depth the phenomenon in terms of its general understanding and certain specific areas of human activity. Scientists interpret "motivation" with slight differences, guided by their understanding of its mechanisms, field of the activity, and some other aspects. Viewing motivation in the context of learning, scholars have diverse approaches and theories, which unquestionably reinforce each other and form general conception of motivation of past and present. This article considers the role of motivation within learning process on the basis of motivational theories and highlights the significance of the phenomenon in L2 learning.
Keywords: motivation, teaching, second language, learning
1. Introduction
Motivation has been considered as one of the key factors that have a significant impact on the successful completion of any activity. We often use motivation in our everyday life, besides it's hard to underestimate its significance with respect to the learning process. It's a powerful force to start, maintain and successfully complete the activity, and through this process to get a positive experience of learning and obtain valuable skills and personal qualities. Without sufficient motivation even students with outstanding abilities fail to pursue the long-term objectives. Thus motivation is crucial with regard to the achievement of learners' second language acquisition.
The purpose of the article is to describe the term "motivation", highlight the theories of foreign language learning motivation and analyze scientific research on the issue, define the types of motivation and certain conditions facilitating the creation of strong stable motivation in the context of learning process. But that is not enough since human behavior is very complex and multidimensional. It is influenced by many factors, such as basic human needs, well-being needs, values and beliefs. [3, p 7] Throughout the history scholars couldn't find general agreement on the phenomenon, giving importance to different aspects of motivation.
2. Definition of motivation
"Motivation, like the concept of gravity, is easier to describe (in terms of its outward, observable effects' than it is to define. Of course, this has not stopped people from trying it". (Martin Covington). [3, p 7]
At its basic level, motivation is compared with internal energy which gives rise to do the activity in order to reach certain desirable goals.
As H Douglas Brown suggests that "a cognitive view of motivation includes factors such as the need for exploration, activity, stimulation, new knowledge, and ego enhancement." [1, p. 51]
According to Marion Williams and Richard Burden, motivation is a 'state of cognitive arousal' which evokes a 'decision to act' and subsequently a 'sustained intellectual and/or physical effort' raises resulting in achieving a 'previously set goal'. [1, p. 51]
Zoltan Dornyei considers motivation "as a general way of referring to the antecedents (i.e. the causes and origins) of action". [3, p.6] As far as human behavior involves two basic components, which is direction and magnitude or intensity - motivation goes hand in hand with both of these. It is responsible for the choice of a certain action, the amount effort aimed at achieving the aim and willingness to deal with difficulties and keep acting. Motivation therefore explains why people do the activity, how much effort they apply to it and time they are ready to maintain the activity. [3, p.7]
3. Historical development of theories of foreign language learning motivation
Since motivation is viewed as the main decisive factor in learning or any other human activity, many scientists focus on its research to better understand the nature of the phenomenon. All motivation theories of the past have been formed to answer three questions: why people decide to do the activity, how hard they are going to work to achieve their goal and how long they are going maintain the activity. Sigmund Fraud's defined motivation as the process determined by basic human instincts and drives, which are mostly unconscious. In the middle of twentieth century, the conditioning theories were proposed. They explained how stimuli (object or event) and responses (reaction) interact in forming habits. In accordance with the conditioning theories, the learning process proceeds through the interaction with the outer world, which forms behavior and the "inner world" of a personality, that is emotions, feelings and thoughts.
There has long been a belief that foreign language learning is basically different from other educational activities, and this has a significant impact on the discussion of L2 motivation. In the late 1950s, Gardner and Lambert started the in-depth study of language learning motivation. In their research, Gardener R.C. and Lambert W.E. suggested two main factors related to the success in education: intelligence and emotional attitude to French culture. According to the research, emotional attitude, motivation, and intelligence are crucial for second language learning. Gardener suggested socio educational model of second language learning to
prove the impact of second language acquisition. He argues that motivation is influenced by the indirect impact of instrumental motivation and integrative motivation. The attitude to the second language learning is considered to be determined by instrumental motivation. This means that the main source of motivation was a practical reason that is getting high grades and finding a good job in the future. On the other hand, integrative motivation has been defined as positive attitude towards second language learning based on personal interest - to better understand and to get to know people and their culture. Robert gardener claimed that second foreign language is not only "an educational phenomenon" or "educational topic", but also a representative of the cultural assets of the speakers of that language. The differentiation between instrumental and integrative motivation coincides with extrinsic and intrinsic motivation differentiation. Gardener noticed that integrative motivation is much more powerful in terms of learning: students tend to be more attentive, inquisitive, and usually get higher grades. This definitely had positive influence on their language skills. Despite the breakthrough that the model made in motivation research, it has been criticized by most scientists. Although this approach offered some really interesting ideas, there was virtually nothing for teachers in terms of the learning process of a particular student in a particular class.
Dornyei Z. gives an alternative view of the subject. Dornyei proposed a theory of Motivational self System (2009) and suggested that such components as: the Ideal L2 self or possible self, Ought-to L2 self and the L2 Learning experience are driving forces for L2 motivation. Ideal L2 self or possible self includes our hopes aspirations and wishes - that is our dreams [6]. The desire to become a successful businessman or scientist might be a significant motivational power as people usually try to bridge the divide between their actual and ideal selves. Consequently it is associated with personal and social duties, obligations or responsibilities. Ideally these two components coincide. Dornyei regards ought-to self as in terms of certain attributes a person wants to possess to avoid possible negative outcomes. Teachers should be aware of this as working with students they demonstrate not only certain skills and techniques but also their true self. Students receive this indirect message and behave accordingly. Another L2 Motivational Self System element is L2 Learning Experience that is the positive impact of success or enjoyable learning process of a language course. So to put it another way, it is directly related to learning environment and experience. Likewise various aspects of the classroom learning situation such as teacher, the curriculum and the learner group have a profound effect on the learners. For some language learners the primary motivation far more likely comes from successful involvement in the learning process rather than from certain self images.
Another model of learner motivation was proposed by Williams and Burden (1997), which clarifies the impact of social and contextual factors on the development of motivation within language learners. The academics accepted the importance of the distinction between internal and external factors and claim that
only if motivation comes from within, it will be really meaningful. They consider motivation as involving learners making their own decisions about the type of activity and input forces according to their own understanding of a particular situation. Another important perspective of Williams and Burden's model is that it presented a specific temporal dimension that differentiates between initiating and sustaining motivation. Motivation is usually considered to be initiating that is getting learners interested and involved. But motivation also deals with maintaining effort over the time. Since the reasons for starting the activity and sustaining it is not one and the same.
It is obvious that motivated learners are more likely to acquire better knowledge and get better results than non motivated ones so motivating students deserves attention.
Dornyei & Otto (1998) developed their Process Model of L2 Motivation, "which is intended both to account for the dynamics of motivational change in time and to synthesise many of the most important motivational conceptualizations to date." [6, 43] The scholars coined three stages of motivation: the preactional stage, the actional stage, and the postactional stage. The pre-actional stage represents initiating motivated behavior and refers to the choices students make when setting particular goals. It consists of three sub phases, "goal setting, intention formation, and the initiation of intention enactment" [6, 47]. Dornyei refers goal setting to three antecedents: wishes/hopes, desires, opportunities. The actional stage specifies how motivation is maintained in the search for goals set at the preactional stage. The beginning of action is an important step in the motivational process which leads to noticeable qualitative changes. According to Dornyei, during the actional phase the following processes come into force: subtask generation and implementation, a complex ongoing appraisal process, and the application of a variety of action control mechanisms. The first of these Dornyei refers to learning behaviors. He claims that action initiation starts with implementing the subtasks according to the action plan. However, when it comes to such ongoing activities as L2 learning, the action plans are rarely perfect, so the need generating and setting subgoals or subtasks. According to Dornyei, the quality of these subgoals and subtasks determines the quality of the learning process and consequently its result. Appraisal process has a profound effect on learning. The crucial point is that a person's appraisal of one level can easily be transferred to a broader or a narrower level; for example negative attitudes caused by failure in doing a particular task might be transferred to the language course or to the language learning as a whole. Dornyei considers the third process - action control - to be crucial from an educational point of view, as it helps to "save" the action when it comes to slowing, halting, or backsliding of the learning process because of low intrinsic motivation and negative experience: for example, when students find class activities or homework to be unenjoyable or uninteresting. In school environments students are not involved in designing their learning schedules or choosing the activities to be en-
gaged in. This implies that there is often little pre actional activity by students. Therefore, "choice motivation" is often weak and needs active support during the actional phase; this is where the action control process is critical.
In the view of Dornyei, the postactional phase starts when the goal has been achieved, or the action has been ceased or interrupted (for example a holiday). At this stage outcomes achieved so far are evaluated and possible conclusions are considered for future actions. A person compares initial expectations and plans to how they turned out in reality and forms causal attributions about the degree the intended goal has been reached. [6, 51] This retrospection significantly facilitates accumulated experience and allows students to develop their "internal standards" and a set of "action-specific strategies." [6, 51]
The postactional stage reflects the students' evaluation of how well they performed a particular task, and accordingly this evaluation is reflected in the preac-tional stage of the follow up action. So the model represents the process of making choices to act in a particular way, acting on those choices, and evaluating those actions in order to consider them while making future behavioral choices. The process model points out that the actions have both causes and consequences. Language learning is a long lasting process with many ups and downs, so any learner is likely to face certain disturbance in enthusiasm and self-determination. This model needs to help teacher and learners understand these motivational fluctuations. Since motivation is a complex set of emotions, thoughts and behaviors, it can change over the time, so we must carefully estimate students as being motivated or not.
3. Conclusions
Motivation in L2 learning is a complex physiological phenomenon and a very powerful factor which influences learning process and consequently its success. Undoubtedly it deserves our attention in terms of L2 learning, or, of course, any other activity. The ability of a person to maintain long lasting activity, such as language learning depends not only on the learning environment, but on certain internal mental processes. It is crucial that educators take into account this fact teaching learners of any ages or talents.
References
1. Jeremy Harmer, 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching: Third Edition. Longman.
2. Scott Thorubury, 2006. A-Z of ELT. Macmillan Books for Teachers. Macmillian.
3. Zoltan Dornyei, 2001. Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Edinburg: Cambridge University Press.
4. Patsy M Lightbown, Nina Spada, 2018. How Languages are Learned. Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers. Fourth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Marion Williams, Sarab Mercer, and Stephen Ryan, 2016. Exploring Psychology in Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers. First Eddition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Zoltan Dornyei & Istvan Otto, 1998. Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, London: Thames Valley University, Vol. 4, pp. 43-69.
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Бричева М.М.
к.ф.н., доцент факультета иностранных языков Адыгейского государственного университета
Нещеретова Т.Т.
к.ф.н., доцент факультета иностранных языков Адыгейского государственного университета
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к.ф.н., доцент факультета иностранных языков Адыгейского государственного университета
Схаляхо Е.Н.
ассистент факультета иностранных языков Адыгейского государственного университета
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Bricheva M.,
Candidate of Philology, associate professor of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Adyghe State University
Nescheretova T.,
Candidate of Philology, associate professor of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Adyghe State University
Sasina S.,
Candidate of Philology, associate professor of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Adyghe State University
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Assistant of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Adyghe State University
Tikhonova A.
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