The motivation of junior high school pupils to learn English in provincial Indonesia

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to explore the motivation of young Indonesians to learn English over the first two years of formal study in a provincial junior high school. The national education system has always struggled to produce competent users of the language, yet the country's need for such graduates is never greater than at the beginning of the 21" century as it responds to the social, economic and political challenges of globalization. Meanwhile motivation has always been recognised as an important factor in language learning success, but recent work has stressed its complexity and changeability over time and in particular contexts, encouraging the possibility of new discoveries in this academically unexplored territory. Defining motivation as a dynamic constellation of contextually sensitive cognitions and affects stimulating individuals to learn, the study adopted a mixed method strategy, using questionnaires at beginning and end of the 20-month research period to track motivational trends across the whole school year group (n = 195) and developing indepth portraits of 12 individuals through interview and classroom observation at three points. The eight school English teachers were also interviewed at the beginning. Results showed a very high level of motivation to learn English, reflected in much autonomous learning of the language outside of school. Although there was evidence of dissatisfaction with aspects of school English lessons, this motivation was largely sustained throughout the period under study and appeared to contribute to significant gains in competence in the language among some learners. It is argued that this motivation derives its strength from identification processes, nurtured and developed through social interaction at home and in the community, which encouraged many young Indonesians in this context to view English as integral to their future lives. 'Me study strongly suggests that understanding differences in the way learners identify with the language is an important direction for future research into L2 motivation in general. Understanding how schools and teachers promote or challenge pupils' L2 identities could lead to improvements in language pedagog