While there has been a surge of publication on L2 motivation studies, not much has been investigated regarding motivation to learn languages other than English. As a longitudinal interview study, the present study investigated two cases of Japanese university students focusing on the development of ideal L2/L3 self and ideal multilingual self. The…

This study closely examined the motivational language selves of Chinese university students in the process of multilingual learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve Japanese specialist majors. The qualitative data revealed the complex interplay between the participants' language selves and complicated contextual influences.…

This study examines motivation and multilingualism using quantitative data from 468 language learners in China. More precisely, the point of inquiry was to investigate the language-specificity of the psychological aspects of self within the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS). The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with the L2 English data revealed…

With English as an undisputed global lingua franca, there is long-standing concern in anglophone countries over the lack of interest in language learning. In the UK, significant changes in language education policy, a mentality of insularity and the global spread of English have all contributed to a drop in language learning uptake beyond the…

In Spain, more than 40% of the population lives in officially bilingual regions in which the minority language is used as a means of instruction at school and university. In addition, the increasing importance attached to learning English has led to the proliferation of multilingual school programs in which different languages are used to teach…

In 2006, Graddol predicted that numbers of "English as a foreign language" learners would begin to decline through the second decade of this century, as global English achieves basic skill status for children entering education in more societies across the world. As he further noted, having skills in additional languages may thus offer a…

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on potential driving forces that guide principals' decisions on how to implement language policies in their schools in Kazan, Russia. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan and home for the second biggest ethnic group in Russia, called Tatars, whose native language proficiency is gradually declining. After…

This article explores adolescent students' attitudes toward learning English and other European languages studied at secondary school. The study is based on 2255 qualitative responses to a survey conducted in Bulgaria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. The data reveal that, although differences between countries shape the experience of foreign…

The majority of recent research on language learning motivation has reportedly focused on English as a target language, typically in relatively homogeneous, secondary and postsecondary "foreign language" settings. How applicable, then, are the theories and findings undergirding that research to our understanding of the contemporary…

China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. Since then drastic changes in this former British colony have occurred. One of these changes is a shift in language policy, from bilingualism (Cantonese and English) to trilingualism (Cantonese, English and Putonghua). The present study is aimed at investigating tertiary students' use of…

English in Third World countries characteristically possesses an ambivalent, even ambiguous character, relating uneasily with feelings of nationalism and of tolerance towards grassroots multilingualism on the one hand, and with the not-so-blind desire of common people to acquire the White people's language on the other. Many different kinds of…