Increasing numbers of Chinese students are pursuing graduate degrees in Catalonia. Although highly proficient in both Castilian and English when they arrive, they find themselves in a bilingual society where Catalan, not Castilian, predominates both at universities and in the broader social context. Acquiring Catalan is hence important for both…

This study investigated motivation in the context of L2 Chinese in the USA. A total of 120 college students took the survey and 27 of them participated in post-survey interviews. Through a mixed-methods design, the study captured interactions between motivation and the learning environment in the learning process. The results revealed six…

Based on Fredrickson's (2001) broaden-and-build theory, this study investigates how Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE; consisting of "teacher appreciation, personal enjoyment," and "social enjoyment") mediates the relationship between Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE) and EFL secondary students' willingness to…

Language-specific (i.e. the ideal L2 self) and plurilingual selves are now at the forefront of scholarly inquiry in L2 motivation research. Yet, there is a lack of empirical studies examining how language learners reframe their sense of self as speakers of an L2. This study draws on a questionnaire (N = 162) and on semi-structured interviews (N =…

This article examines Vietnamese students' motivation for learning Mandarin Chinese during their study abroad in Taiwan and their construction of self in relation to this language learning motivation. A combination of several concepts of ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, instrumental motive, integrative motive, linguistic capital, and multiple…

Language acquisition and Language Maintenance (LM) both depend on ample opportunity and motivation. Currently, many national language societies are undergoing Language Shift (LS) to English, impacting their acquisition as first (L1) and possibly even more as second (L2) language. This study interviewed 44 adolescents, including 24 L1 and 20 L2…

What drives provincial students in Korea to choose a college in Seoul? What role does English language learning play in their choices? This study focuses on two young academic migrants to Seoul, Joon and Lynn, to explore how macrocultural phenomena shaped their psychology and contributed to their language education. Previous studies have focused…

This study examined the motivation level of struggling English learners in China and explored the link between motivation and their English achievement. Furthermore, this research dug into the moderation effect of teacher-student relationships on this link based on attachment theory and self-determination theory. Struggling students (n = 14,531)…

The purpose of the present mixed methods study was to investigate if enhancing Focus on Form (FonF) tasks with data-driven learning (DDL) affects English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' task motivation from the self-determination theory (SDT) perspective. Following a quasi-experimental comparison group pretest-posttest and sequential…

Motivation to learn languages other than English (LOTEs) has been underrepresented in second language (L2) motivation research. This study investigated and compared the motivational profiles of first-year and second-year students majoring in Spanish, grounded on the proposition of bifurcating ideal and ought selves into "Own" and…

The role of positive and negative psychological factors in predicting effort and foreign language anxiety for languages other than English (LOTE) is not well understood. Therefore, two hundred twenty-one students attending a private university in Tokyo, Japan participated in a research study. Participants were studying one of four LOTEs,…

Despite evidence of the acculturation benefits of social media engagement with mainstream culture, there is limited understanding of what motivates or demotivates ethnic minorities' social media engagement with mainstream culture. Adopting the theoretical construct of investment, this study interviewed 31 ethnic minority secondary school students…

As an intimidating school subject for students globally, writing requires a high level of motivation, especially for second language (L2) learners. Despite abundant research on motivation in both first language (L1) writing and L2 learning, L2 writing motivation warrants more attention. To bridge the gap, the study intends to present an overall…

The educational disparities that can be found in the English language learning outcomes of middle school students in Austria have gone relatively unexplored in international research. National studies have tended to attribute lower educational outcomes either to students' socioeconomic status or their multilingual background. In this article, we…

This study extends our understanding of Chinese university students' motivation to learn languages other than English (LOTEs) by adding a contextual dimension to the L2 Motivational Self System. The study drew on Higgins' ([1987]. "Self-discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Affect." "Psychological Review" 94: 319-340.)…