This landmark volume offers a collection of conceptual papers and data-based research studies that investigate the dynamics of language learning motivation from a complex dynamic systems perspective. The chapters seek to answer the question of how we can understand motivation if we perceive it as a continuously changing and evolving entity rather than a fixed learner trait.
This landmark volume offers a collection of conceptual papers and empirical research studies that investigate the dynamics of language learning motivation from a complex dynamic systems perspective. The contributors include some of the most well-established scholars from three continents, all addressing the question of how we can understand motivation if we perceive it as continuously changing and evolving rather than as a fixed learner trait. The data-based studies also provide useful research models and templates for graduate students and scholars in the fields of applied linguistics and SLA who are interested in engaging with the intriguing area of examining language learning in a dynamic vein.
This collection of conceptual papers and data-based research studies investigate the dynamics of language learning motivation from a complex dynamic systems perspective. The chapters seek to answer the question of how we can understand motivation if we perceive it as a continuously changing and evolving entity rather than a fixed learner trait.
This handbook offers an authoritative, one-stop reference work for the dynamic and expanding field of language learning motivation. The 32 chapters have been specially commissioned from the field’s most influential researchers and writers. Together they present a compelling picture of the motivations people have for learning languages, the diverse ways we can research motivation, and the implications for promoting and sustaining learners’ motivation. The first section outlines the main theoretical approaches to language learning motivation; the next section presents ways in which motivation theory has been applied in practice; the third section showcases examples of motivation research in particular contexts and with particular types of language learners; and the final section describes the exciting directions that contemporary research is taking, promising important new insights for academics and practitioners alike.
"Innovations and Challenges in Language Learning Motivation provides a cutting-edge perspective on the latest challenges and innovations in language learning motivation, incorporating numerous examples and cases in mainstream psychology and in the field of second language acquisition. Drawing on over three decades of research experience as well as an extensive review of the latest psychological and SLA literature, Dèornyei provides an accessible overview of these cutting-edge areas and covers novel topics that have not yet been addressed in L2 motivation research, such as: fundamental theoretical questions such as mental time travel, ego depletion, psychological momentum and passion, and how the temporal dimension of motivation can be made consistent with a learner attribute; key challenges concerning the notion of L2 motivation, ranging from issues about the nature of motivation (e.g. trait, state or a process?) and questions surrounding unconscious versus conscious motivation, the motivational capacity of vision, and long-term motivation and persistence; highly practical classroom-specific challenges such as how technological advances could be better integrated in teachers' repertoires of motivational strategies. This distinctive book from one of the key voices in the field will be essential reading for students in the field of TESOL and Applied Linguistics, as well as language teachers and teacher educators"--
This volume presents the results of the largest ever language attitude/motivation survey in second language studies. The research team gathered data from over 13,000 Hungarian language learners on three successive occasions: in 1993, 1999 and 2004. The examined period covers a particularly prominent time in Hungary’s history, the transition from a closed, Communist society to a western-style democracy that became a member of the European Union in 2004. Thus, the book provides an ‘attitudinal/motivational flow-chart’ describing how significant sociopolitical changes affect the language disposition of a nation. The investigation focused on the appraisal of five target languages – English, German, French, Italian and Russian – and this multi-language design made it also possible to observe the changing status of the different languages in relation to each other over the examined 12-year period. Thus, the authors were in an ideal position to investigate the ongoing impact of language globalisation in a context where for various political/historical reasons certain transformation processes took place with unusual intensity and speed. The result is a unique blueprint of how and why language globalisation takes place in an actual language learning environment.
This book brings together contributions from the leaders of the language learning motivation field. The varied chapters demonstrate how Gardner’s work remains integral to a diverse range of contemporary theoretical issues underlying the psychology of language, even today, 60 years after the publication of Gardner and Lambert’s seminal 1959 paper. The chapters cover a wide selection of topics related to applied linguistics, second language acquisition, social psychology, sociology, methodology and historical issues. The book advances thinking on cutting-edge topics in these diverse areas, providing a wealth of information for both students and established scholars that show the continuing and future importance of Gardner and Lambert’s ideas.
The book takes a pratical approach to teaching motivational strategies in the language classroom, and gives the teacher 35 motivational strategies that they can use with language learners.
Building on Zoltán Dörnyei’s authoritative work in the field of learner motivation, this book introduces a new conceptualization—Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs)—and sets out the defining aspects of what they are, what they are not, and how they are related to language learning motivation. Going beyond focused behavior in a single activity, DMCs concern intensive long-term motivation. The distinctive feature of the theory is that it views motivation not simply as a springboard for action but also as a uniquely self-renewing and sustainable process. It is this energizing capacity which distinguishes DMCs from almost every other motivational construct described in the research literature. Motivational Currents in Language Learning offers new insights, valuable both to motivation researchers and classroom practitioners. The accessible style, along with plentiful illustrations and practical suggestions for promoting sustained learning, invite readers to think about motivation in a different way. Highly relevant for language teachers, teachers-in-training, teacher educators, and researchers in TESOL and applied linguistics, the book explains how the DMC construct can be integrated into course structures and teaching methodologies, and encourages teachers to try out novel methods for harnessing motivational power in classroom settings.
This book explores stereotypes that learners of six Asian languages— Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Myanmar, Thai and Vietnamese—hold about the target language country, its cultures and people. Some of the findings, such as the language learners’ mental images of Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, are presented here for the first time. Recognizing that stereotypes, and attitudes embedded in them, have an impact on people’s actions and behavioural intentions, this book examines whether and how the country stereotypes held by the students influenced their motivation to learn the target language. Besides providing worthwhile insights into the content and structure of the country stereotypes and their relationship with language learning motivation, this book offers methodological and theoretical advancements. Drawing on intellectual heritage of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) the book highlights how the concepts of word meaning (znachenie slova) and word sense (smysl) could be fruitfully employed in studies on stereotypes that people learning a foreign language hold about a target language country. This book will appeal to all readers interested in stereotypes that people have about foreign countries and also to educators and researchers who study language learning motivation.
