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Learning Japanese as a Foreign Language in the Context of an American University: A Qualitative and Process‐Oriented Study on De/Motivation at the Learning Situation Level
Author(s) -
Yi Tsang Sin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1944-9720.2012.01167.x
Subject(s) - feeling , psychology , perspective (graphical) , foreign language , context (archaeology) , class (philosophy) , mathematics education , qualitative research , social psychology , pedagogy , sociology , epistemology , social science , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
Abstract Motivation plays an important role in foreign language learning. To investigate factors that influence motivation level, the researcher surveyed 102 students studying Japanese at the University of Washington and interviewed 10 of them. From their responses, the researcher identified four de/motivational factors: (1) teachers, (2) feedback, (3) difficulty of the class, and (4) feeling of progress. These findings also suggest that the impacts of these factors occur at different levels, take different forms, and have different strengths. The study also discusses the psychology of students underlying the influence of these de/motivational factors. Furthermore, students most frequently mentioned “teachers” and “feeling of progress,” which partially agrees with four previous related studies. Finally, the researcher briefly discusses the teachers’ perspective.