This study explored the language learning motivation of a small group of five university students in the UK through the constructs of Dornyei's L2 Motivational Self System and Henry's notion of 'the ideal multilingual self'. The five participants, all successful language learners at school, chose to specialise in modern languages at university and…

This case study examines the journey of a successful Chinese language learner who has become a Chinese language instructor. His path of learning Chinese is found to be different than that of most non-heritage Chinese instructors. Key factors contributing to his success include prior experience of learning Spanish as a second language, strong…

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…

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons for low retention rates among students in the Chinese classes in upper secondary education in the Czech Republic. The principal research question was whether Chinese characters were the main reason why many students decided to stop attending their Chinese classes. Semi-structured interviews with…

The paper discusses the findings regarding future possible selves based on research with Russian-speaking migrant pupils in English state-funded primary schools at Key Stage 2 (7-11 years old). Its aim is to explain the nature and characteristics of ideal selves of primary-level migrant children. The methodology comprises a qualitative…

This paper explores a group of secondary school students' feelings about Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) using a self-determination theory (SDT) lens. It adds to the limited, existing literature on TPRS and is the first to study it from a purely motivational perspective. The paper analyses the extent to which students…

The motivation to learn a third language (L3) has received increasing attention in research, especially with regard to how it evolves dynamically during the learning process. Underpinned by the L2 Motivational Self System [Dörnyei, Z. 2005. "The Psychology of the Language Learner: Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition."…

This study attempts to synthesise the scholarship on second language (L2) motivation and systematically examines the theoretical approaches, methods, research instruments, and learning contexts found in recent research published between 2010 and 2019. Following a comprehensive survey of six influential, high-impact journals in the field, 100…

This paper presents the findings of a research project on UK school students' attitudes to the use of Free Online Machine Translation for L2 production and more specifically in preparing for assessment. Data were collected from a publicly available online forum to analyse students' spontaneous discussion of the use of Free Online Machine…

Despite the centrality of motivation for all learning, few studies have examined the effectiveness of online language teacher education (OLTE) programmes within a psychological framework. This explorative study seeks to address this gap by evaluating the effectiveness of a two semesters OLTE course for German teachers in the Norwegian context. The…

The instrumental motivations of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) have been examined in detail, but there is a lack of studies exploring how they compare to those of learners of other languages (LOTEs). To address this gap, this study draws on a questionnaire (N = 312) and on semi-structured interviews (n = 20) and focuses on…

With a focus on the neglected 'L2 learning experience' component in Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), this study investigated secondary students' L2 motivation in the context of online English private tutoring (EPT). Through narrative inquiry, students narrated their EPT experience online and reflected on it in comparison with that in…

This paper investigates the relationship between the decisions made by school leaders in England concerning their school policy for teaching modern foreign languages (MFL) post-14, and student motivation for MFL. Seventy head teachers, 119 heads of modern languages and 666 students aged 14-15 from schools in England took part in the…

In this opinion piece we problematise foreign language (FL) learning curricula which are rigidly based on carefully sequenced input and constrained learning opportunities. Whilst an important component in language learning, language knowledge constitutes more than phonics vocabulary and grammar. Our stance is premised on the understanding that,…

Sign language learners are a heterogenous group who have different motivations for embarking on formal studies. It is apparent at the outset that many learners are uninformed about sign languages and the deaf community. It has been previously noted that societies often lack the understanding that signed languages are valid languages, and have…