International Perspectives on Motivation

Language Learning and Professional Challenges

E. Ushioda, E. Ushioda

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137000873
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

Bringing together motivation-related practical concerns and debates from diverse international contexts and educational settings where English is learned, this book shows how locally produced insights and issues can have wider global significance, resonating with the experiences and concerns of English teachers and learners across the world.

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Motivation and ELT: Global Issues and Local Concerns

Ema Ushioda

What is distinctive about this book: starting with local concerns

Motivation is widely recognised as a significant factor influencing success in second or foreign language (L2) learning, and is perhaps one of the key variables that distinguishes first language acquisition from second language acquisition. After all, while motivation is not really an issue in the case of infants acquiring their mother tongues, being motivated (or not) can make all the difference to how willingly and successfully people learn other languages later in life (Ushioda, 2010: 5). The study of language learning motivation has a long history, dating back to the early pioneering work of Gardner and Lambert (1959) in Canada, and has generated a large body of literature. On the whole, this literature has been driven by the pursuit of explanatory theoretical models of motivation and their empirical exploration in a variety of formal and informal learning contexts. This is reflected in the current push towards new analyses of L2 motivation in terms of concepts of self and identity and of complexity theory (see, for example, the collections of conceptual and empirical papers in Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009; Murray, Gao & Lamb, 2011). Since the 1990s, it is true to say that the research literature has increasingly concerned itself with motivation issues and practices of relevance to teachers, leading to the development of pedagogical recommendations in areas such as motivational strategies (Dörnyei, 2001), group dynamics (Dörnyei & Murphey, 2003), or teachers’ communicative style (Noels et al., 1999). Yet the relationship between motivation theory and practice tends to be of a top-down kind in the sense that it is from theory and research that implications for practice are distilled, often in rather generalised terms for a wide potential audience (i.e., not tied to specific settings or local concerns).

In contrast, what makes the current volume distinctive is that it takes the local teaching–learning context as the starting point for reflections on motivation. In doing so, it seeks to acknowledge and capture the recent remarkable growth of interest in motivation in the English language teaching field – an interest that is largely shaped by local educational and pedagogical objectives rather than by the broader pursuit of theory.

In an era in which globalisation, global English and associated critical issues are having a significant impact on educational policy, curriculum provision, language pedagogy and, of course, on student motivation, interest in motivation within the ELT field is driven by local practical concerns. At a superficial level, the global importance ascribed to English might lead us to assume that the need to learn English is unquestionable, and that therefore student motivation is not really a problem. After all, English is a global language, spoken by an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide by the turn of the millennium (Crystal, 2003: 6), and increasingly regarded as a basic educational skill alongside literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology (ICT) skills (Graddol, 2006). Hence, the motivation for learning English does not seem to require justification or examination. In reality, however, local ELT experiences and practices indicate that this simple logic does not hold. Rather, it seems that issues of motivation are often high on the agenda despite – or perhaps because of – the significant status English has in local or national educational policy, curriculum provision, high stakes gatekeeping exams, the professional job market and society at large. Where learning English is concerned, these local exigencies reflecting global trends and pressures have an inescapable impact on the motivation of students and teachers. Moreover, the power and status accorded to English may have negative consequences for students’ motivation to learn other foreign, national or local languages, or for the motivation of policy makers or education providers to promote a more diversified language curriculum. In addition, with the growth of immersion and bilingual education and English-medium subject teaching in many countries across the world, motivation issues relating to learning English often become inseparably linked to more general issues and problems of motivation in mainstream education.

This book brings together motivation-related practical concerns and debates from a wide range of international contexts and levels of education, and from the perspective of writers who are practitioners as well as researchers. As the various chapters will show, these contextually grounded and locally produced insights, questions and understandings can have wider global significance, resonating with the experiences and concerns of ELT practitioners in other contexts, and contributing also to current theoretical analyses of motivation.

Motivation, contexts and the changing global landscape of ELT

A key message in this volume is that, with the rise of global English and the changing global landscape of ELT, contexts of learning assume particular importance for discussions of motivation. While in one sense the global English phenomenon and associated growth and mainstreaming of English language education may suggest processes of convergence and homogenisation, in reality the changing global landscape of ELT reflects an increasing diversity of geographical, political, social, cultural, linguistic, educational, institutional and technological contexts in which learning English is situated. Such diversity of contexts reflects, in turn, further local diversities – for example, in curricula, models of teaching, target varieties of English, materials and resources, teacher background and training. This contextual diversification was already apparent in Kachru’s (1985) depiction of the historical spread of English around the world from its native Anglophone ‘inner circle’ bases (e.g., the U.K., North America), through the ‘outer circle’ postcolonial territories (e.g., Nigeria, Singapore) where English fulfils key social and administrative functions and has developed indigenised varieties, to the ‘expanding circle’ of countries where English is studied as a foreign language (e.g., Italy, China). As several commentators have since noted (e.g., Crystal, 2003; McKay, 2002), the ‘expanding circle’ has now expanded and diversified to the extent that in many such contexts (e.g., the Nordic countries, the Netherlands), the so-called ‘foreign language’ of English has a pervasive presence in society with more fluent bilingual English speakers than in many ‘outer circle’ contexts in which English has official second language status. Moreover, there have been growing discussions in some ‘expanding circle’ countries about making English an official second language (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, Japan – see Graddol, 2006), which would render it steadily more difficult to categorise contexts of learning.

Traditional analyses of ELT contexts and motivation

In short, the global landscape of ELT is rather more complex than its traditional binary analysis in terms of English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, distinguished broadly according to linguistic setting (i.e., whether or not English is used in the surrounding society). As Howatt (1984: 212) has noted, the ESL/EFL distinction became ‘widespread’ in the 1950s. This period happened to coincide with the beginning of research interest in language learning motivation, through the work of Gardner and Lambert (1959) in North America. While Gardners and Lambert’s initial programme of research focused more on learners of French than learners of English, what is relevant to the discussion here was their interest in comparing L2 motivation in bilingual and bicultural (i.e., second language learning) settings such as Quebec or Louisiana, with L2 motivation in monolingual and monocultural (i.e., foreign language learning) settings such as Maine or Connecticut (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). The nature of the setting and the potential (or not) for regular social contact and integration with speakers of the target language thus constituted key considerations in the analysis of L2 motivation. These considerations became crystallised in the well-known distinction between ‘integrative’ and ‘instrumental’ reasons for learning a language, the former reflecting a more socially oriented desire to interact with, and possibly integrate into, the target language community, and the latter reflecting the more pragmatic benefits of acquiring target language skills.

It is important to note that Gardner and his colleagues have been at pains to deny a simple association between integrative motivation and second language contexts on the one hand and instrumental motivation and foreign language contexts on the other, and they have marshalled meta-analytic research evidence to show that such an association does not hold (Masgoret & Gardner, 2003). Nevertheless, as reflected in Dörnyei’s (1990) contention that integrative reasons will feature more strongly in second language rather than foreign language settings, the association has long had intuitive appeal and, as Bhaskaran Nayar commented critically in 1997, has led to the assumption that integration must be a primary motivation for ESL learners. In short, at a superficial level, there has been a temptation to map the traditional binary analysis of the ELT landscape (EFL/ESL) onto the traditional binary analysis of L2 motivation (instrumental/integrative).

Yet, as Bhaskaran Nayar observed back in 1997, a problem with this assumption is that ESL contexts differ markedly depending on whether they refer to English language education for immigrants in native Anglophone settings such as North America or Australia, or to learning and using English in postcolonial settings such as India or Malaysia. While integration may be an understandable (though not a necessary) motivation for learning English in the former ESL settings (see Igoudin, Chapter 11), the relevance of integrative motivation seems less clear in multilingual postcolonial settings in which English may serve certain administrative functions or be used in particular sectors of society, and where people are likely to possess complex linguistic repertoires (e.g., Sridhar, 1996). Thus, perhaps, it was no great surprise that instrumental rather than integrative orientations emerged more significantly in two early L2 motivation studies in postcolonial ESL settings – the Philippines (Gardner & Santos, 1970), and India (Lukmani, 1972). More recently, Coetzee-Van Rooy (2006) has strongly criticised the concept of integrative motivation as untenable in relation to learners and speakers of indigenised varieties of English (i.e., world Englishes) in postcolonial contexts, since the concept cannot account for the complex sociolinguistic realities of language learning and use in such settings in which multidimensional identities and pluralism (rather than integration) are the norm. As Coetzee-Van Rooy argues, with the global spread of English there is now a growing diversity of contexts in which English is learned and to which traditional concepts of L2 motivation cannot be uncritically applied.

In short, with the increasing diversity and complexity of the ELT landscape, the associations between context and motivation are also becoming ever more complex, as will be explored in the following sub-sections.

Motivation and the fluidity of today’s learning contexts

At one level, complexity lies in the fact that, with the growth of migration and mobility and advances in communication technologies, contexts of learning and using English in the globalised world are becoming fluid, flexible, mobile, transitory, borderless and less easily definable. In relation to communication technologies, for example, students can interact with people across the world via the Internet, participate in discussion forums and webinars with other students and teachers in different locations, access learning materials and resources via their smartphone or tablet computer while on the move, or get feedback and comments on their blog-writing from a local or global audience (e.g., see Stockwell, Chapter 9). Communication technologies also mean that migrants, business travellers, international students and tourists can maintain daily contact with family, friends and colleagues they have left behind, or can access national news and television programmes from their own countries. Thus, they can maintain a strong virtual foothold in their home communities and in social or professional networks while living, studying or travelling abroad, and cheaper air travel also means that it is relatively easy to return in person or even to commute on a regular basis. In effect, the contexts within which people learn and use English are not so easily definable in geographical, physical, cultural, social or linguistic terms. Thus, the distinctions between learning English as a ‘foreign’ language and learning English as a ‘second’ language become increasingly difficult to sustain when immersion in an English-speaking community or the return to one’s home community are readily possible, both virtually and physically. In particular, characterising learning settings on the basis of whether or not English is spoken in the surrounding environment is becoming less and less easy across the internationalised higher education sector. This is due to phenomena such as the globalisation of universities competing in the international academic marketplace, the spread of English-medium academic teaching in many countries (e.g., in the Middle East – see Malcolm, Chapter 6), the growth of international universities offering degree programmes taught in English (e.g., Maastricht University) and the setting up of transnational overseas campuses by a growing number of American, British and Australian universities (e.g., Monash University in Malaysia, Nottingham University in China, Temple University in Japan).

Hence, this complexity in defining what we mean by local learning contexts raises critical questions about how we can characterise people’s motivation for learning English in a globalised world. As Pavlenko (2002) has argued, traditional categorisations of L2 motivation operate on the assumption that the world consists of largely stable homogeneous and monolingual cultures, of in-groups and out-groups in situations of inter-ethnic contact (e.g., Giles & Byrne, 1982), and of individuals from one ethnolinguistic community moving into another (e.g., Schumann, 1978). However, when there is such fluidity of movement as there is today, when multilingualism rather than monolingualism is the norm, and when people regularly traverse ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Motivation and ELT: Global Issues and Local Concerns
• 2  Cultural Challenges, Identity and Motivation in State School EFL
• 3  Listening to Romanian Teenagers: Lessons in Motivation and ELT Methodology
• 4  From Bilingual Francophones to Bilingual Anglophones: The Role of Teachers in the Rising Equities of English-Medium Education in Cameroon
• 5  The Integration of Content and Language as a Driving Force in the EFL Lesson
• 6  Motivational Challenges for Gulf Arab Students Studying Medicine in English
• 7  Motivation and the Transition to University
• 8  Digital Games and ELT: Bridging the Authenticity Gap
• 9  Technology and Motivation in English-Language Teaching and Learning
• 10  Motivated by Visions: Stories from Chinese Contexts
• 11  Social Identity and Language Learning Motivation: Exploring the Connection and Activating Learning
• 12  Native Speaker English Language Teachers: Disengaged from the Changing International Landscape of their Profession
• 13  Motivation and ELT: Looking Ahead to the Future
• Index