A context-specific approach to L2 motivation in Anglophone settings: a first step towards theory development

Contradictory Others and the Habitus of Languages: Surveying the L2 Motivation Landscape in the United Kingdom

“…British parents tend to be less supportive toward modern languages than Dutch and German parents (Bartram, ), although we must bear in mind the evidence that parental support for the learning of English will always be higher than for other languages. Given that both the strength of support and the way that parents rationalize the purpose of the child's language study are linked to parental language knowledge (which is poorer than in other European countries) (Bartram , ; Gayton, , ), it is little surprise that UK parents seem less supportive of language study than parents in other countries.…”

“…Gayton's studies from Scotland (, ) show links between socioeconomic background and student attitude toward modern languages: Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and with fewer opportunities to travel have more negative attitudes toward languages and envision few opportunities to use language skills in later life. Gayton's studies provide a rare link between the motivational literature and the manifest evidence of elitist trends of language.…”

“…Furthermore, teachers shape student motivation not just in their teaching quality and style but also through their personal language learning beliefs (e.g., Cowie & Sakui, ). Teachers’ views on the purpose of language learning may reinforce the social divide in language take‐up (Gayton, ), in that they expect students from lower socioeconomic background to be less interested in languages. Student motivation is also influenced by the attitude of the school leadership toward languages (Coleman et al., ).…”

“…Finally, the limited choice of languages at school may be a demotivating factor (Bartram, ). Widening the choice of languages to include other world languages such as Chinese might increase motivation (Hua & Li Wei, ), but there is only tentative evidence to this effect (Gayton, ). There is also some evidence of students preferring certain languages over others (Williams et al., ); however, overall, we lack studies investigating attitudes toward different languages, including lesser‐studied languages, and differences in such attitudes across ages.…”

Age, Gender, Attitudes and Motivation as Predictors of Willingness to Listen in L2

“…According to his model, 'the sense of a discrepancy between a learner's actual self and ideal future L2 selves result in the motivation for language learning' (Tatar, 2017, p. 701). Along with self-system theory, dynamic system theory and studies on learner identity have also shaped current conceptualization of L2 learner motivation (Gayton, 2018;Mercer, 2016;Moskovsky, Assulaimani, Racheva, & Harkins, 2016;Papi, Bondarenko, Mansouri, Feng & Jiang, 2018;Roshandel, Ghonsooly, & Ghanizadeh, 2018). MacIntyre and Charos (1996) included motivation, personality and context to McCroskey and Baer's (1985) original structural model of willingness to communicate to develop willingness to communicate (WTC) in L2 as one of the personality factors.…”