Motivation matters in mobile language learning : A brief commentary

In this paper I offer a brief commentary on motivational issues in mobile language learning, drawing on empirical insights from the articles in this special issue

Language learning motivation : current insights and implications

The issue of learner motivation has long exercised researchers and practitioners in the field of language education. However, it is only within the past decade or so that we have witnessed productive interaction between the interests of researchers and teachers. Up until the early 1990s, research interest focused primarily on describing, measuring and classifying language learner motivation and exploring its role in theoretical models of the language learning process. The findings from such research offered little to teachers concerned with the practical question of how to motivate their learners and keep them motivated. Moreover, this research agenda was powerfully shaped by social-psychological perspectives on learner attitudes to target language cultures and people (Gardner 1985; Gardner and Lambert 1972), while motivational influences and processes within the social environment of the language classroom remained relatively unexplored. In a seminal critique of the social-psychological tradition, Crookes and Schmidt (1991) set forth a new agenda for research on a more ‘practitioner-validated’ classroom-based concept of language learning motivation. The need to establish closer links between theory and practice and to develop what Dörnyei (2001a:103) has called more ‘education-friendly’ approaches to language learning motivation research stimulated an unprecedented wave of discussion during the mid-1990s (for a detailed summary, see Dörnyei 1998), and has considerably reshaped the direction of theory and research in the field

Language learning motivation through a small lens : a research agenda

In this paper I propose an agenda for researching language learning motivation ‘through a small lens’, to counteract our tendency in the L2 motivation field to engage with language learning and teaching processes at a rather general level. I argue that by adopting a more sharply focused or contextualized angle of inquiry, we may be able to understand better how motivation connects with specific aspects of SLA or particular features of linguistic development. Keeping the empirical focus narrow may also lead to interesting and illuminating analyses of motivation in relation to particular classroom events or to evolving situated interactions among teachers and learners. I propose a number of possible research tasks that might be undertaken by experienced researchers, teacher-researchers or student-researchers wishing to investigate language learning motivation ‘through a small lens’

Motivation Matters in Mobile Language Learning: A Brief Commentary

In this paper I offer a brief commentary on motivational issues in mobile language learning, drawing on empirical insights from the articles in this special issue

Promoting teacher–learner autonomy through and beyond initial language teacher education

With the growing international market for pre-experience MA in ELT/TESOL programmes, a key curriculum design issue is how to help students develop as learners of teaching through and beyond their formal academic studies. We report here on our attempts at the University of Warwick to address this issue, and consider wider implications for research and practice in initial language teacher education. At the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, we run a suite of MA programmes for English language teaching professionals from around the world. Most of these courses are for students with prior teaching experience, but our MA in English Language Studies and Methods (ELSM) programme is designed for students with less than two years’ experience and, in fact, the majority enrol straight after completing their undergraduate studies in their home countries

Intuition and reflexivity : the ethics of decision-making in classroom practitioner research

In this conceptual paper I discuss some ethical complexities in conducting classroom practitioner research on the psychology of language learning and I analyse the potential role of intuition in handling these complexities. I begin by developing the ethical argument for taking a person-focused rather than systems-based approach to researching the psychology of language learning in the classroom. I make the case that practitioner research lends itself particularly well to a strongly person-focused orientation to exploring psychological perspectives in the classroom, since it is typically motivated by a desire to bring about positive change or enhance the quality of classroom life within a specific teaching and learning community. In the core part of the paper, I focus on the role of intuition in the decision-making processes that practitioner researchers undertake as teachers and researchers. In particular, I discuss some potential ethical complexities in how they navigate their dual roles in the classroom and manage their evolving relational work with students, and I consider the contributions and pitfalls of intuition in handling these ethical complexities. Drawing on the work of Guillemin and Gilham (2004), I argue that both intuitive and reflexive forms of thinking are essential to good ethical practice and decision-making when teachers research their own classrooms

Ema Ushioda's essential bookshelf : teacher engagement with classroom motivation research

I began my Ph.D. research on language learning motivation in 1991, just as this field was entering a significant period of critical debate that came to a head in 1994 through a series of discussion articles published in Modern Language Journal. Among other things, the debate emphasised the need to pay more attention to pedagogical issues relevant to language teachers, and it paved the way for growing research on such issues through the first decades of this century. This focus on teachers’ perspectives and practices has always been core to my interest as a motivation scholar working in language teacher education and concerned with supporting teachers in addressing practical challenges in their classrooms. Hence, in my engagement with the motivation literature, I have tended to gravitate towards work addressing teachers’ perspectives or reporting on classroom-based research. Such is the literature base I have been using in my practice as a language teacher educator. For my essential bookshelf, I have drawn from this literature base the texts that have particularly shaped my thinking and practice, and that merit reading by teachers and researchers interested in motivation as a PEDAGOGICAL ISSUE rather than an abstract psychological construct

Investigating the predictive validity of TOEFL iBT® scores and their use in informing policy in a UK university setting

The project examined the predictive validity of TOEFL®iBT with a focus on the relationship between TOEFL®iBT scores and students’ subsequent academic success in postgraduate studies in one leading university in the UK, paying specific attention to the role of linguistic preparedness as perceived by students and tutors. We employed a mixed-methods approach in order to enrich traditionally quantitatively oriented studies with a qualitative perspective. For the sample of 504 students who entered the university for postgraduate studies in the years 2011-2013 on the basis of a TOEFL®iBT score, we analyzed the relation between TOEFL®iBT scores and final academic award by correlation and regression analyses, taking into consideration discipline, nationality, and additional language support. For the qualitative strand, students entering the university in 2013 on the basis of a TOEFL®iBT score were invited to questionnaires and interviews, as were their EAP and academic tutors. A total 48 students and 58 tutors participated, with 25 students and 36 tutors being interviewed at three points over the course of the year.Our findings show that students entering the university on the basis of TOEFL®iBT scores feel well prepared, and generally regard the test as an effective means of preparation for their academic studies in a UK setting. They cope well with the linguistic demands and a vast majority graduate successfully. Our findings support the appropriateness of the university’s entrance policy with regard to setting minimum test score requirements, thus underpinning the predictive validity of TOEFL®iBT in a UK setting

Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: access, identity, autonomy

In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of theories of self and identity. Expanding the notion of identity, I discuss the contribution of the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio in promoting a view of motivation as the development of a plurilingual European identity and the enabling of access and mobility across a multilingual Europe. Next, I critically examine the assumption that the individual pursuit of a plurilingual identity is unproblematic, by highlighting the social context in which motivation and identity are constructed and embedded. To illuminate the role of this social context, I explore three inter-related theoretical frameworks: poststructuralist perspectives on language motivation as 'investment'; sociocultural theory; and theories of autonomy in language education. I conclude with the key message that, as with autonomy, language motivation today has an inescapably political dimension of which we need to take greater account in our research and pedagogical practice