Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition: Insights from Japan 9781783093953

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Dr Simone Pfenninger, University of Zurich, Switzerland This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers and teachers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 90

Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition Insights from Japan

Keita Kikuchi

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Kikuchi, Keita. Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition: Insights from Japan/Keita Kikuchi. Second Language Acquisition: 90 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Language and languages–Motivation–Japan. 2. Second language acquisition– Motivation–Japan. 3. Language and languages–Study and teaching–Japan. 4. Motivation in education–Japan. 5. Language and languages–Study and teaching–Japanese students. 6. Language and languages–Study and teaching–Japanese speakers. I. Title. P53.48.K55 2015 401’.93–dc23 2015009683 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-394-6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2015 Keita Kikuchi. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services Limited. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Books Group.

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xi

1

Understanding Demotivation Definition of Demotivation Summary of the Chapter

1 1 6

2

Prior Focus of Demotivation Studies Expansions from the Original ‘Demotivation’ Construct Studies on Demotivators Studies on Demotivation Strategies for Dealing with Learner Demotivation Summary

7 7 8 10 12 16

3

The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition Brief Overview of Key Individual Difference Constructs in SLA Demotivation as Social and Environmental Factors in SLA Summary

17 17 22 24

4

A Survey Study to Test Demotivator Models Introduction Questionnaire Development Data Screening Results of Statistical Analyses Summary of the Results

26 26 29 41 46 58

5

Learner and Teacher Perceptions of Demotivators Introduction Methods

62 62 62

v

vi

Contents

Results of Statistical Analysis Discussion and Conclusion 6

Learner Reflections: Demotivators in Secondary School The Use of Qualitative Data Obtained from Questionnaires The Research Design How the Quantitative Data were Analyzed How Qualitative Data were Analyzed in This Study Analysis of Changes with Two Demotivated Students Conclusion

64 68 71 71 72 74 75 88 89

7

Uncovering Demotivators Beyond the Classroom Introduction Results Discussion Conclusion

90 90 94 102 104

8

Summary of Findings From Studies of Demotivators Findings From the Quantitative Studies Presented in Chapters 4 and 5 Findings From the Qualitative Study Presented in Chapter 6 Findings From the Mixed Method Study Presented in Chapter 7 Synthesis of Findings Limitations of the Studies Presented Summary

105

9

Motivational Strategies and Demotivation Basic Motivational Conditions to be Considered What to be Careful of in Generating Initial Motivation How We can Maintain and Protect Learner Motivation How We can Encourage Positive Retrospective Self-Evaluation Why These Strategies to Deal with Demotivation? Conclusion

105 106 107 108 110 111 112 113 114 114 115 116 117

Contents

10 Future Explorations of Demotivators Problems with Current Demotivation Studies Identifying Demotivators’ Different Levels of Contexts Methodological Issues Two Research Terms: Ambivalence and Disengagement Suggestions for Future Studies Conclusion

vii

119 120 123 124 126 128 129

Appendix A: Demotivation Questionnaire 1 (Japanese Version)

131

Appendix B: Demotivation Questionnaire 1 (English Version)

133

Appendix C: Demotivation Questionnaire 2 (Pilot Version)

135

Appendix D: English Translation of Demotivation Questionnaire 2 (English Translation of Pilot Version)

137

Appendix E: Demotivation Questionnaire 2 (Final Version)

139

Appendix F: English Translation of Demotivation Questionnaire 2 (English Translation of Final Version)

141

Appendix G: Demotivation Questionnaire 3 (Final Version)

143

Appendix G: Demotivation Questionnaire for College Students (English Translation of Final Version)

145

Appendix H: Demotivation Questionnaire for College Students (Final Version)

147

Appendix I: Letter for College Cooperating Teachers (in Japanese and English)

149

Appendix J: English Translation of a Part of the Questionnaire Used in Kikuchi and Sakai (2014)

150

Appendix K: Item Description of the Questionnaire Used in Chapter 7 (Adapted from Taguchi et al., 2009)

151

References

153

Index

161

Acknowledgements

My sincerest gratitude goes firstly to all the students and teachers who participated in the study. Without their kind cooperation, this study would not have been accomplished. This book is an extension of my dissertation, which I completed in 2011. I thank my dissertation committee members, David Beglar, Steven Ross, Mark Sawyer, Edward Schaefer and William Snyder. First and foremost, I thank David Beglar, as the major supervisor, for his instruction on his research methods and statistics. Even after I had finished the dissertation, he took his time answering my questions while I was preparing this book manuscript. Dr Ross opened my eyes to an important analytic technique, structural equation modeling. Dr Sawyer helped familiarize me with the field of second language (L2) motivation research. I appreciate his constructively critical comments on my drafts as well as references to inspiring studies in other fields. I thank Drs Schaefer and Snyder for joining my committee and making insightful suggestions for improving various parts of the dissertation. The following people commented on some aspects of the book: Matthew Apple, Eton Churchill, Jeffery Durand, Nicholas Jungheim, J. Lake, Charles Robertson, Hideki Sakai, Akiko Takagi and Ema Ushioda. I especially thank Jeffery Durand for reading the entire book manuscript over and over and for giving me precious comments. I also thank Ema Ushioda for her insightful comments on various chapters and her advice and warm encouragement from the preparation stage to the end of the book project. Finally, I would also like to thank my past assistants, Amika Hattori, Miki Sakuma and Hirona Takahashi, who helped transcribe and translate the interviews. I am grateful that I have had opportunities to have these and many other people, whom I cannot list here, in my life so that I can keep motivating myself to continuously work hard! Keita Kikuchi Tokyo, Japan

Note This work was supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Grant Nos. 21720203 and 24720269).

ix

Introduction It is probably more than 20 years ago, but I am still able to recall my memories from secondary school English class just as clearly as events that happened several years ago. I started studying English when I entered junior high school like everybody else in Japan back then. I remember receiving a new textbook, a notebook and cassette tapes to listen to passages from the textbook. I was so excited. Did I do well from the beginning? No. My grades in English courses were poor. They were so bad that in my second year in junior high school I was asked to go to a special summer camp to study for about a week. In the meantime, most of my friends were enjoying their free time during the break between the first and second term. I was not motivated to study English because I just did not feel like memorizing all the exercises and passages in my English textbook. Labeled as someone whose grades were bad, I was even more demotivated. I remember that I simply did not want to memorize anything. I experienced three demotivating aspects while studying English at a high school in Japan. These demotivating aspects I later came to conceptualize as demotivators (I will expand on this idea in Chapter 1). The first demotivator I can easily think of is a specific teacher. I had the same English teacher for three years. This teacher, Mr K, almost never talked to me. During class, he did talk to students who, in his mind, behaved badly by not doing what he wanted students to do. He also seemed to enjoy talking to students who met his expectations. I did not belong to either group. In order to be successful on midterm and final tests, students had to memorize passages from a textbook. One time, Mr K asked every student in the class to recite a passage of the textbook from memory. I was initially unable to memorize the uninteresting reading passage; however, eventually, after long practice (I cried to my parents at home during this hard practice!) I successfully recited the passage alone in front of the teacher. Until I was able to do this, I was not allowed to go home. This teacher probably believed that memorizing the passage would help students to understand and acquire English grammatical structures, yet it was certainly a demotivating experience for someone like me who liked English but who did not like being forced to memorize uninteresting passages. Back then, I did not have any dislike for English. I liked to read English fiction just as much as Japanese. However, this experience was so humiliating that I still remember it.

xi

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Introduction

A second demotivator for me was class activity. What we did mostly in the classroom, in addition to memorization, was translate English passages into Japanese. Students were called on one at a time and asked to orally translate a passage or to come to the front to write it on the blackboard. Sometimes, the teacher explained difficult structures on the board, too. Other than the translation exercises, the only other activities we had were grammar or vocabulary exercises. With just these few kinds of exercises, everybody needed to survive the 45-minute classes more than three times a week. We kept doing this for almost six years. It was not until I entered college that I was able to take an English course that I liked. The third demotivator for me was being with the same classmates for six years. I needed to stick with this same community for several years in high school. What I still remember about senior high school English class is not the instruction, but what many people did during class. Since it was not interesting to just translate all the time, some students did not listen to the teacher. If the class was in the morning, some ate their lunch from their lunchbox. If it was in the afternoon, many slept. It was not easy for students to be motivated in this kind of environment. Fortunately, I usually did not have to be with the same class members after a semester at university. With all three of these demotivators gone – a humiliating teacher, boring class activities and an unenthusiastic community – I was able to enjoy English again. In explaining my personal experience in this introduction, I have used three terms: demotivators, demotivating and demotivated. In Chapter 1, I clarify these terms after describing motivation, the positive side of demotivation. Chapter 2 discusses the necessity of studying demotivation in second language acquisition research. Chapter 3 provides a literature review on demotivation studies conducted both outside and within Japan. In the succeeding three chapters, I present a combination of examples using quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches. Chapter 4 describes a questionnaire-based quantitative study involving more than 1200 high school pupils studying English. Chapter 5 describes a follow-up study using regression analysis. Chapter 6 describes a study on demotivational factors in English courses at junior and senior high schools and presents a qualitative analysis of the study. Chapter 7 describes another study on demotivational factors, this one for university freshmen studying English in Japan. Chapters 4 through 7 are used as a springboard to discuss methodological and research issues in later chapters. Chapter 8 summarizes the findings from the studies described in the previous chapters, examines common themes and discusses how demotivators influence language acquisition. Chapter 9 discusses how teachers deal with learner demotivation using motivational strategies. Chapter 10 concludes the book by suggesting directions for further research based on implications drawn from the studies in this book.

1 Understanding Demotivation

Definition of Demotivation How can teachers help students to be more motivated to learn a foreign language? This is a question that many foreign language teachers ask themselves, and I have been looking for the answer to this question following the experiences that I described in the Introduction. Researchers in the field of motivation in second language learning have argued that motivation is a crucial factor in language learning and that there are a variety of measures that teachers can take to improve learner motivation. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of teachers, many learners lose interest in foreign language learning. As Dörnyei (2001: 141) points out: Classroom practitioners can easily think of a variety of events that can have demotivating effects on the students, for example public humiliation, devastating test results, or conflicts with peers. If we think about it, ‘demotivation’ is not at all infrequent in language classes and the number of demotivated L2 learners is relatively high. (Dörnyei, 2001: 141) Dörnyei’s concern is that no matter how hard teachers try to encourage their students, there will always be a certain number of demotivated learners. Demotivation seems to be particularly widespread in Japanese high school English classrooms and, as briefly described in Introduction, it can occur for a variety of reasons (see Kikuchi [2013] for a detailed review of this issue). Before defining demotivation, the central theme of this book, let me briefly provide a definition of ‘motivation’. Demotivation combines the prefix deand the noun motivation. As an important first step, it is necessary to think about how we should view motivation. While motivation is the process that drives learners to move toward a goal, demotivation is the negative process that pulls learners back. An understanding of demotivation follows more easily from an understanding of motivation.

Working definition of motivation It is useful to understand how lay people may conceptualize motivation. Table 1.1 describes definitions of motivation found in three different online dictionaries. As can be seen, the definitions vary greatly, ranging from inner feelings, such as desire, drive, interest or willingness, to the act itself, 1

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

Table 1.1 Definition of motivation in online dictionaries Source

Definitions

Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary

Willingness to do something, or something that causes such willingness

Collins English Dictionary

(1) the act or an instance of motivating; (2) desire to do; interest or drive; (3) incentive or inducement; (4) (psychology) the process that arouses, sustains and regulates human and animal behavior.

Merriam-Webster Online (1) the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing Dictionary something: the act or process of motivating someone; (2) the condition of being eager to act or work: the condition of being motivated; (3) a force or influence that causes someone to do something.

to a condition and to a process. By simply taking a look at the dictionary entries, you may understand the difficulties of defining motivation. Among these dictionary entries, Collins English Dictionary includes a definition related to psychology. This definition is closest to the working definition that is used in this section. Based on Schunk et al. (2008: 4), I would like to view motivation as ‘the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained’. In their perception, The term motivation is derived from the Latin verb movere (to move). The idea of movement is reflected in such common-sense ideas about motivation as something that gets us going, keeps us working, and helps us complete tasks. Yet there are many definitions of motivation and much disagreement over its precise nature. (Schunk et al., 2008: 4) In preparing for this book and consulting many resources, this definition of motivation as a process that involves goals and requires activity to be activated and sustained made the most sense. In the field of language learning motivation, Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011: 4) state that motivation concerns (a) the choice of a particular action, (b) the persistence in that action and (c) the effort expended. In this vein, I view language learning motivation as a process in which learners choose to learn a language and put effort into doing so.

Researchers’ views of ‘demotivation’ How has demotivation been viewed in the literature? Zhang (2007: 213) defined it as ‘the force that decreases students’ energy to learn and/or

Understanding Demotivation

3

the absence of the force that stimulates students to learn’. Zhang, who conducted a study about demotivation that utilized the framework of instructional communication studies developed by Christophel and Gorham (1995; Gorham & Christophel, 1992; Gorham & Millette, 1997), argued that various teacher-related factors (e.g. teachers’ incompetence, offensiveness and indolence) can become negative motivational influences. Dörnyei (2001a: 143) defined demotivation as ‘specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action’. He argued that demotivation is different from amotivation, which refers to a lack of motivation that is most closely associated with selfdetermination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2002). Dörnyei considers demotivation to be related to specific external forces that cause a reduction in motivation. In Dörnyei’s (2001a) conceptualization, amotivation refers to a lack of motivation caused by the realization that there is no point in studying a foreign language, or a student’s belief that studying a foreign language is beyond his or her capacity. Based on Vallerand’s (1997) conceptualization of amotivation, people can be amotivated because of various beliefs (e.g. capacity–ability beliefs, strategy beliefs, capacity–effort beliefs and helplessness beliefs). Due to these beliefs, a relative absence of motivation can occur. As stated by Dörnyei (2001a: 143), ‘amotivation is related to general outcome expectations that are unrealistic for some reason, whereas demotivation is related to specific external causes’. The problem with this definition of demotivation, however, is that it has not yet been empirically determined whether or not demotivating factors are completely external. A number of researchers (e.g. Arai, 2004; Falout & Maruyama, 2004; Tsuchiya, 2004a, 2004b, 2006a, 2006b) included in their studies of demotivation both external factors, such as teachers and class materials, and factors that are internal to the learner, such as a lack of self-confidence and negative attitudes. Despite his conceptualization of demotivation as being caused by external factors, even Dörnyei (2001a) listed two internal factors, reduced self-confidence and negative attitudes toward the foreign language, as sources of demotivation. Therefore, Kikuchi (2011) has added the notion of internal to Dörnyei’s (2001a) definition and defines demotivation as ‘the specific internal and external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action’. Based on this definition, I refer to these individual internal and external forces as demotivators in this book. Note that the studies included in the following chapters are not only about demotivated learners. The participants in most of the studies are a mix of motivated and demotivated learners. This is a very important conceptual issue that I will return to in Chapter 9. It is also important to note that students’ motivation to study English fluctuates (Koizumi & Kai, 1992; Miura, 2010; Sawyer, 2006). Demotivation does not necessarily mean a lack of motivation; demotivation also occurs,

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

for instance, when the motivation of a highly motivated student decreases to an average level. In terms of motivational fluctuations, the level of motivation might decrease from the beginning of the student’s English study over many years.

Working definition of demotivation In the previous section, I clarified that what scholars have referred to as ‘demotivation’ will be treated as demotivators in this book. In this section, I will define the term demotivation for this book. I introduced the working definition of motivation in the previous section, Now, I will work with the prefix to motivation, de-. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the prefix de- can mean (a) do or make the opposite of; reverse; (b) remove or remove from; (c) out of; (d) reduce; or (e) derived from. While language learning motivation concerns the process that involves goals and requires activities to arouse and sustain motivation, demotivation concerns the negative process that pulls learners down. In terms of the perception of demotivation in the literature, scholars use the word demotivation in different ways. From my understanding, the term demotivation can be differentiated from demotivators, demotivating and demotivated. Figure 1.1 represents the conceptualization of these four words, along with the positive side of this concept, motivation, and a complete loss of motivation, amotivation. As I discussed above, first of all, I see demotivators as ‘the specific internal and external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action’. The pull, or series of demotivators, that makes people ‘demotivated’ can be seen as demotivating. We can use this word demotivating as an adjective.

A M O T I V A T I O N

Demotivated

Demotivating

Demotivators

Motivating Learner’s state of Motivation

Figure 1.1 Concept of demotivation and demotivators

Motivators

Motivated

Understanding Demotivation

5

I would also like to discuss the difference between demotivation and amotivation. As I described, demotivation concerns the negative process that pulls learners down. I see, however, that demotivation is situational, and demotivated learners can still be motivated again. In contrast, amotivation concerns a lack of motivation. Vallerand and Ratelle (2002) describe amotivation as follows: Amotivation is at work when individuals display a relative absence of motivation. In such instances, individuals do not perceive a contingency between their behaviors and outcomes, so they do not act with the intention to attain an outcome… They begin to feel helpless and may start to question the usefulness of engaging in the activity in the first place. (Vallerand & Ratelle, 2002: 43) Language learners who have become amotivated probably cannot see why they should keep attending classes and decide to quit coming to school. On the other hand, demotivated learners still come to classes and engage in activities if they feel like it. In order to illustrate the difference between demotivation and amotivation, let us imagine that two Japanese learners of English, Yuki and Takashi, are entering a university at the same time. Expecting that English courses at the university level are different from what Yuki experienced in high school, her state of motivation to study English is high at the beginning. However, after experiencing demotivators, such as getting a low score on a test or being placed in an inappropriate class level, she may become demotivated. We can call this process demotivation. We can say that it was demotivating for her to experience demotivators: receiving a low score and being in an inappropriate class. Her state of motivation may increase after experiencing motivators, such as meeting an international student with whom she can communicate in English or making a plan to study abroad. We can say that in this state she is motivated. The process of being motivated can be seen as motivation. The push to her becoming motivated can be called motivating. On the other hand, Takashi experiences amotivation after entering the university. In the first class of an English course in which an American teacher, James, tells the class to meet their classmates and ask them about their hometowns, high schools and hobbies, Takashi just sees everybody around him looking happy communicating in English with new Japanese friends that they have just met. These kinds of experiences can be motivators for many students. While Takashi can see the point that he needs to meet new friends and communicate in English in this course, he just does not feel like talking in a foreign language with Japanese people. After several minutes of seeing many Japanese classmates trying hard to talk only in English, he walks away from the classroom. The teacher, James,

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

immediately notices this, catches him and rebukes him in English, Takashi never understands English. This experience works as a demotivator, but he does not care at this moment. Feeling helpless, Takashi stops going to this class and starts to question the usefulness of learning English in general. He clearly understands that he needs to get credit for this course in order to graduate, but he just does not feel like going to this class anymore. This condition can be seen as amotivation.

Summary of the Chapter In Chapter 1, I have provided definitions of demotivation discussed in previous literature and described the focus of the book. I attempted to clarify the current confusion surrounding the terms by distinguishing demotivators from demotivation. In Chapter 2, I review previous studies in three areas: studies on demotivators, demotivation and strategies for dealing with demotivation. What are the sources of demotivation? What is happening in the process of demotivation? How do learners cope with the process of demotivation? Please keep these questions in mind while reading Chapter 2.

2 Prior Focus of Demotivation Studies In Kikuchi (2013), I provided a literature review of demotivators. I reviewed research along with studies in the field of instructional communication in the United States (Christophel & Gorham, 1995; Gorham & Christophel, 1992; Gorham & Millette, 1997), and a study researching teacher misbehaviors that acted as demotivators among college students in the United States, China, Germany and Japan (Zhang, 2007). I also provided extensive reviews on studies of demotivators in English language learning conducted both in Japan and in other countries, published up to 2010. In this chapter, I would like to update this review, examining a variety of topics related to three important issues: demotivators, demotivation and strategies to deal with learner demotivation. As also noted by Kim and Kim (2013), who described ‘state-of-the-art’ English learning demotivation research, methods for much research in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts involve interviews, questionnaires and essays collected from participants. As I will deal with methodological issues in a later chapter, in this chapter, I mainly summarize the findings from previous studies and point out the key issues raised with the research approaches used.

Expansions from the Original ‘Demotivation’ Construct Following the publication of Dörnyei (2001a), who spurred the investigation of this topic, numerous researchers have conducted a variety of studies. Originally, they focused on demotivators because Dörnyei (2001a: 142) described demotivation as something that ‘concerns various negative influences that cancel out existing motivation’. However, we have seen the expansion of this research topic over a decade. From my understanding, there are now studies of demotivators, demotivation and how learners can cope with demotivation. Kim and Kim (2013) categorize previous studies into two types: studies of demotivation as a ‘novel/distinctive construct’ and as a ‘decrease in motivational intensity’. The former concerns demotivators and the latter concerns demotivation, focusing on motivational changes over time, as in Figure 1.1. After over a decade of Dörnyei’s (2001a) publication, Kim and Kim also rightly acknowledge the expansion of this research topic in their extensive review of studies in Asian countries. 7

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

A third type of study that I would like to add here is one that investigates strategies to deal with learner demotivation. This area of research is important, especially to meet the needs of practitioners. There are studies on remotivating strategies (Carpenter et al., 2009) and on strategies for preventing demotivation (Hamada, 2014).

Studies on Demotivators Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) provided a summary of the findings on studies of demotivators (see also Kikuchi [2013: 223–224] for a review of research in Japan). Reviewing previous studies, they argued that demotivators could be categorized into six causes: teachers, characteristics of classes, experiences of failure, class environment, class materials and learner interests. The following is a description of each type of demotivator based on Sakai and Kikuchi (2009: 61). (1) Teachers: Teacher attitudes, lack of teaching competence or language proficiency, personality and teaching style. (2) Characteristics of classes: Course content and pace, focus on difficult grammar or vocabulary, monotonous and boring lessons, focus on university entrance exams and memorization of language. (3) Experiences of failure: Disappointment due to test scores, lack of social acceptance by teachers and classmates and the feeling of being unable to memorize vocabulary and idioms. (4) Class environment: Attitudes of classmates, the compulsory nature of English study, friends’ attitudes, inactive classes, inappropriate level of difficulty and inadequate use of school facilities (e.g. not using audiovisual materials). (5) Class materials: Unsuitable or uninteresting materials (e.g. too many reference books and/or handouts). (6) Learner interests: Learners’ own sense that the English used at school is not practical and is unnecessary. Learners’ low regard for Englishspeaking people. All in all, these six factors may be important to keep in mind for researchers who want to conduct studies on demotivators in their own context and for teachers who want to understand about the learners in front of them. After a review of the literature, Sakai and Kikuchi then classified the possible demotivators that learners may experience in their classroom learning contexts. You can see examples of quantitative studies in Chapters 5 and 6, along with questionnaires, provided in the appendices, measuring how demotivating each construct is among Japanese high school learners of English. Along with Kikuchi (2013) and Kim and Kim (2013), interested readers can keep track of previous important studies on demotivators. So far, a

Prior Focus of Demotivation Studies

9

number of scholars have studied common demotivators for learners of English in different contexts. There are studies of demotivators in Iran (Alavinia & Sehat, 2012; Moiinvaziri & Razmjoo, 2013), Pakistan (Krishnan & Pathan, 2013), Saudi Arabia (Daif-Allah & Alsamani, 2014), Vietnam (Trang & Baldauf, 2007; Tuan, 2011) and Korea (Kim, 2009, 2011), to name a few. There is also a study based on two samples in Korea and China (Li & Zhou, 2013). How have researchers conducted their research? What are some of the common findings? In this section, I review Kim (2009) and Li and Zhou (2013) as examples of research on demotivators and explore the answers to these questions. Kim (2009) studied demotivators among 220 Korean learners of English attending junior high school, using a 31-item questionnaire (with four-point Likert scales) that was designed to measure seven demotivational factors derived from previous studies: teachers, characteristics of English classes, experiences of failure or difficulty learning English, textbooks, inadequate learning environments, testing concerns and lack of interest. She used a questionnaire developed with similar constructs to the six constructs described above, but adding one construct on testing concerns. In her questionnaire, each item was preceded by the Korean phrase equivalent to ‘What demotivated me when learning English is…’. For instance, this phrase precedes ‘I seldom have opportunities to communicate in English in class (Item 1)’. Participants were asked to think whether each item could be a demotivator. Kim found the following five factors: difficulty learning English, teacher competence and teaching style, characteristics of English classes, reduced motivation and interest, and inadequate learning environments. Difficulty learning English was found to be the most demotivating factor, while teacher competence and teaching style along with inadequate learning environments were not observed as strong demotivators. In the other study, Li and Zhou (2013) notably attempted to find differences in perceptions of demotivation between two samples in different contexts. They researched demotivators among 97 college students in China and 101 college students in Korea, using a 40-item questionnaire (with fivepoint Likert scales) based on written feedback from open-ended questions and interviews with both samples. In order to understand culture-specific differences, they compared descriptive statistics and the results of factor analyses, for which they found differences. In the analysis of the responses from the Chinese participants, they found six factors: learning strategies, negative attitudes toward target language and culture, teachers, learning environment, inadequate facilities and confidence deficiency (listed in descending order by mean). From the Korean participants, they found only four factors: confidence deficiency, peer pressure, inadequate facilities and learning environment (also listed in descending order by mean). Based on these differences in the factor analyses as well as in the descriptive

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statistics, they speculated on the influence of culture on their findings. They concluded that the participants in their study did not perceive teachers as strong demotivators compared to studies conducted in other contexts. Rather, the participants attributed their demotivation to such internal factors as lack of confidence. Two demotivators unique to the Chinese participants were the lack of a learning strategy and the negative attitude toward the target language and culture, while peer pressure stood out as a unique demotivator among the Korean participants. I believe that it is useful to identify influential demotivators in each context so that teachers can reflect on their practice. However, criticism may be raised as in Kim and Kim (2013): What seems to be insufficient in the studies focusing on finding demotivating factors is that the researchers failed to address different process [sic] of demotivation for individual learners. The studies seem to demonstrate that all individual learners perceive the extracted factors to be demotivating to similar extents. (Kim & Kim, 2013: 81) I admit that studies of demotivators simply investigate what might cause language learners to be demotivated. However, researchers have been trying to study how demotivators work among learners with low/ high motivation or low/high proficiencies. They simply cannot account for the different processes of demotivation among individual learners, yet identifying demotivators is important in itself. In sum, researchers have been identifying various factors that learners experience that may demotivate them. It is reported that they become demotivated due to bad test scores, or from being required to memorize difficult grammatical structures or vocabulary. They also may become demotivated by teachers’ attitudes, their instructional style or boring materials. However, each learner reacts to these demotivators in different ways. Some learners remain demotivated after experiencing such factors while other learners may not actually be seriously affected. There is a need for studies to investigate how learners process demotivators and what is happening during the learners’ state of demotivation.

Studies on Demotivation Japanese scholars conducting research on changes in foreign language learning motivation (e.g. Koizumi & Kai, 1992; Koizumi & Matsuo, 1993; Konishi, 1990) have noted a drop in motivation among learners of English in junior high school. Researchers outside Japan have also been studying demotivation. As Pintrich (2003) observes: There is good empirical evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that over the course of the school years, student motivation

Prior Focus of Demotivation Studies

11

on the average declines or becomes less adaptive, with a large drop as students enter the junior high or middle school years. (Pintrich, 2003: 680) Notably, he was commenting that students’ motivation largely drops when they enter junior high schools generally. Over the course of the school years, students may experience demotivation not only in language studies, but also in other school subjects. In a study of language learning motivation, Chambers (1999), who researched junior high school students studying German, commented: The evidence...suggests that your Year 7 pupils are looking forward with enthusiasm to learning your subject ... Two years later the picture is not quite so encouraging...The honeymoon is over. The enthusiasm is on the wane. Pupils appear disgruntled. Something has gone wrong. (Chambers, 1999: 81) What happens with the motivation of foreign language learners over the course of their school years? In this section, I review Williams et al. (2002) and Kim (2011), who respectively examined drops in motivation among junior high school students studying German and French in the United Kingdom and elementary school students studying English in Korea. Williams et al. (2002) studied foreign language learning motivation among 228 pupils (Year 7 and 9), who were taking French or German courses. Williams et al. (2002: 522) stated that there was ‘a clear negative trend with age in terms of the students’ integrative orientation, their feelings about the competence of their teachers, as well as the perceived importance of learning a foreign language’. Among 16 constructs in the questionnaire originally distributed, statistically significant differences were found in the means of 7 constructs (need, integrative orientation, perceived success, perceived ability, effort, metacognitive strategies and teacher) when they ran independent sample t-tests (two-tailed) between two groups (Year 7 and 9 students). In their analysis, they interpreted that Year 9 participants perceived a lesser degree of need for the language, had a lower perception of their ability, had a lower integrative orientation and had a less positive attitude toward their teachers than did Year 7 participants. As the authors themselves noted, this study was not a developmental study in which they would have investigated the same learners over two years. Caution must be taken in interpreting their results in that the difference might simply be a cohort effect. However, it is an interesting study that attempts to discuss demotivation among middle school learners studying German or French, which are common foreign languages in the United Kingdom. Kim and Seo (2012) investigated English learning demotivation among 6301 elementary school students and teachers’ perception of it using mixed

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

methods (questionnaires collected from students, along with interviews with and open-ended questionnaires from 17 English teachers). In their analysis of the questionnaire data obtained from the elementary school students, who were in Grades 3 through 6 in 29 different schools, they found a decrease in all five constructs in the questionnaire (instrumental, intrinsic, integrative, parental extrinsic and academic extrinsic motivation). Based on the interviews with and open-ended questionnaires from the 17 teachers, Kim and Seo (2012: 160) noted that teachers attributed the students’ demotivation to three factors: ‘(1) the negative impact of the English teacher such as incongruence with students’ needs, teachers’ impatience, and disinterest in teaching and in their students; (2) excessive social expectation of English proficiency; (3) and the widening English proficiency gap among the students’. Both studies inform us of the negative trends in motivation over a course of study. In two different contexts, researchers used questionnaires primarily to investigate learners’ decrease in motivation. What is happening with learners? Kim and Kim (2013) note: demotivation can be defined as a decrease in certain domains in English learning motivation, which results from negatively functioning motivational constructs. That is, while both demotivated and motivated English learners can still possess motivation, parts of their motivational constructs are likely to function negatively, leading them to demotivation to different degrees. (Kim & Kim, 2013: 95) Based on the questionnaire data obtained from participants in different school grades, it is still difficult to find out what is happening with learners’ state of demotivation. Through longitudinal studies involving interviews, observations and multiple questionnaires over a period of time, we can perhaps understand the complexity of learner demotivation. (See Lamb [2007] as an example of a longitudinal study of learner motivation.)

Strategies for Dealing with Learner Demotivation Some researchers are actively investigating what to do with demotivated learners. Carpenter et al. (2009) studied what we can do to help foreign language learners to ‘remotivate’ themselves, and Hamada (2014) studied how to ‘prevent’ demotivation. In this section, I review these two studies to explore how we can deal with learner demotivation. Using a questionnaire, Carpenter et al. (2009) asked 285 Japanese college students to reflect on what demotivated and remotivated them in their English study. In their ‘Remotivation Questionnaire’, they asked respondents two questions about their process of remotivation along with another two open-ended questions on what they did in the process.

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13

In addition to questions about remotivation, Carpenter et al. asked the respondents about when their motivation decreased and the strategies that they used or planned to use to remotivate themselves. The questionnaire items used were: (1) What periods in your education did your motivation go down? Why did it go down?; (2) If you unintentionally became remotivated, please explain in detail what happened to you; (3) If you intentionally tried to remotivate yourself, please explain in detail what you did; and (4) What are you doing now or planning to do to keep motivated in your English learning? Table 2.1 summarizes the remotivating ideas that Carpenter et al. collected from their learners of English. Table 2.1 Remotivation strategies listed in Carpenter et al. (2009) Unintentional remotivation strategies (1) Teacher-related factors

Percentage of total responses

No. of utterances

11.54%

33

(2) Exposure to authentic media (reading books, hearing English music, television, movies, etc.)

9.09%

26

(3) Improved study skills (more effective learning strategies)

5.59%

16

(4) Interactions with English-speaking foreigners (having, witnessing and desiring)

5.24%

15

(5) Competition with/influence of peers

5.24%

15

(6) New, better environment (new classroom, school or travel abroad)

4.55%

13

(7) From experience of being understood in English, or understanding English

4.20%

12

(8) Encouragement/support from family and friends

3.50%

10

(9) Test scores and grades (positive and negative assessment)

3.50%

10

(10) Speaking in English

3.50%

10

(11) Entrance exam or the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) preparation

3.15%

9

46.50%

133

Intentionally applied remotivation strategies (1) Out-of-class self-regulation: • Became more diligent in self-regulated study • Sought out authentic contexts of practice • Sought out supplemental formal instruction • Accessed intrinsically motivating media

14.34%

41

6.29%

18

4.55%

13

21.33%

61 (Continued)

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

Table 2.1 (Continued) Intentionally applied remotivation strategies (2) Cognitive/affective modification: • Thought of instrumental value

Percentage of total responses

No. of utterances

19.93%

57

3.85%

11

• Thought of social value

1.75%

5

• Imagined a future self

1.40%

4

• Reflected on past success

1.75%

5

• Reflected on past failure (or negative future consequence)

2.10%

6

• Consulted with friends, family or teachers for emotional support, encouragement

3.85%

11

• Unspecified (e.g. ‘I made myself like English.’)

5.24%

15

15.73%

45

7.69%

22

• Became more engaged in class

5.24%

15

• Developed stronger relationships in class

1.75%

5

(3) In-class self-regulation: • Became more diligent with teacher-regulated tasks

• Studied with friends

0.35%

1

• Competed with friends for fun

0.70%

2

9.79%

28

• Focused on short-term goals (quizzes, tests, etc.)

2.45%

7

• Focused on long-term goals (e.g. entrance exams)

4.90%

14

• Focused on personal long-term goals

2.45%

7

6.99%

20

0.70%

2

• Changed environment

0.35%

1

• Took a break from study

2.80%

8

• Tried not to think about it

1.40%

4

• Unspecified

1.75%

5

(4) Goal focus:

(5) Demotivator avoidance: • Engineered present environment

These ideas are worthy of attention. They give a variety of strategies that learners are using in order to remotivate themselves. Furthermore, Carpenter et al. (2009) summarized the findings and reported them to learners for self-motivational practice. They argue:

Prior Focus of Demotivation Studies

15

By providing environments rich in meaningful interaction with the goal of exposing learners to multiple and dynamic uses of strategies as modeled by their peers, teachers may facilitate the emergence of agentive thinking. Through critical reflection, students can open pathways to conscious control of their motivational practices as agents of their own lifelong learning. (Carpenter et al., 2009: 167) In order to deal with remotivation, this kind of practice is useful. In their study, Carpenter et al. found that learners with more positive past experiences tended to report a greater variety of strategies to maintain their motivation. By reporting a list of the strategies that people with different kinds of experiences employ, teachers can have a variety of learners in class reflect together on how they may deal with their demotivation. This reflective practice itself can be remotivating. It was notable that Carpenter et al. (2009) asked the study participants to reflect back on when their motivation decreased and what they did to remotivate themselves. They also asked what their participants were doing at the time of the study. In other words, they collected the learners’ idea of regulating their motivation on their own. On the other hand, Hamada (2014) surveyed learner perceptions on the effectiveness of various strategies for preventing demotivation in their English study. Using a different word, ‘preventing’ demotivation, Hamada collected the idea from learners’ preference on what they want teachers to do to regulate their motivation. He asked 336 Japanese high school students to complete a questionnaire consisting of 41 items (on a six-point Likert scale). Hamada’s questionnaire was devised based on items used in Shinohara (2009), which investigated teachers’ perceptions of their practice of motivational strategies. Two examples of Hamada’s questionnaire items are: build a good rapport with students (Item 1) and teach English enthusiastically (Item 2). For each item, the respondents were asked to answer ‘How applicable is this statement for preventing demotivation?’. By factor analysis, he identified five primary factors (teacher sensitivity, student feelings, English usage, traditional teaching style and goal orientation) to prevent demotivation. Hamada argued that teacher sensitivity is the most effective for preventing demotivation. The mean score for traditional teaching style was 3.01, not exceeding 3.5, which is the median of the six-point Likert scale. Therefore, he argued that other than using a traditional teaching style, other motivational strategies ‘appeared to be generally effective’ (Hamada, 2014: 16) in preventing demotivation. Although different terms (i.e. strategies for remotivation or preventing demotivation) were used, the ideas reported by Carpenter et al. (2009) and Hamada (2014) in this section are perhaps what people observe as language learning strategies or motivational strategies. Griffiths (2008: 87) defines

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

language learning strategies as ‘activities consciously chosen by learners for the purpose of regulating their own language learning’. Carpenter et al.’s (2009) list of remotivation strategies in Table 2.1 contains several instances of what learners do to regulate themselves, which are important language learning strategies. In addition, Hamada’s (2014) list of strategies for preventing learner demotivation is similar to the list of motivational strategies.

Summary In this chapter, I provided an update of demotivation research, focusing on studies of demotivators, demotivation and strategies to deal with learner demotivation. As seen in this chapter, many demotivation studies have focused on learners’ perceptions of their experiences in class, with little focus on wider social and environmental perspectives. Nonetheless, I hope that readers are now familiar with what researchers have studied about language learner demotivation and how they conducted these studies. Now, the important questions to ask are how these studies fit into the field of second language acquisition and whether they help our understanding of language learning motivation. I explore these questions in the next chapter.

3 The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition In this chapter, I describe where the idea of demotivation stands in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). In the study of demotivation, there is still confusion about how we operationalize the term demotivation. As argued in the previous chapters, I distinguish demotivators from demotivation. In this chapter, I mainly focus on demotivators to direct the discussion. Before jumping into this discussion, I give a brief overview of the key constructs of individual differences and review two constructs related to demotivation: anxiety and motivation. Then, I tackle this issue initially as a possible variable in learners’ individual differences and then as an environmental factor affecting learners’ motivation.

Brief Overview of Key Individual Difference Constructs in SLA Ellis (2008: 644) lists the factors identified as influencing individual learner differences in language learning from Skehan (1989), Robinson (2002) and Dörnyei (2005), three books entirely devoted to this topic. As shown in Table 3.1, these three scholars treat motivation as an important individual learner difference, along with other constructs. Furthermore, Ellis (2008: 644) groups the factors into four categories: abilities (cognitive capabilities for language learning that are relatively immutable), propensities (cognitive and affective qualities involving preparedness or orientation to language learning that can change as a result of experiences), learner cognitions about second language (L2) learning (conceptions and beliefs about L2 learning) and learner actions (learning strategies). In Ellis’ conception, language aptitude, intelligence and working memory are categorized as abilities. Anxiety, learning style, motivation, personality and willingness to communicate are categorized as propensities. Learner beliefs and learning strategies are categorized as learner cognitions about L2 learning and learner actions, respectively.

17

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

Table 3.1 Constructs listed as key individual learner differences in Skehan (1989), Robinson (2002) and Dörnyei (2005) Skehan (1989) • Cognitive and affective factors

Robinson (2002)

Dörnyei (2005)

• Age

• Language aptitude

° Extroversion/introversion

• Anxiety

• Learning and cognitive styles

° Risk-taking

• Intelligence

• Language learning strategies

° Intelligence

• Language aptitude • Motivation

° Field independence

• Motivation

• Personality

° Anxiety

• Working memory

• Other learner characteristics

• Language aptitude

° Anxiety

• Language learning strategies

° Creativity

• Motivation

° Learner beliefs ° Self-esteem ° Willingness to communicate

Another useful way to look at how factors of individual differences work in the process of language acquisition is given by Dörnyei (2010). He states that individual differences are typically seen as background learner variables that modified and personalized the overall trajectory of the language acquisition processes, accounting for why, how long and how hard (motivation), how well (aptitude), how proactively (learning strategies) and in what way (learning styles) the learner engaged in the learning process. (Dörnyei, 2010: 252) Going over these conceptions, we can perhaps understand the importance of studying the effects of individual differences in the SLA process. In a chapter reviewing recent developments of individual differences in SLA, Dörnyei and Skehan (2003) claim: …individual differences in second language learning, principally foreign language aptitude and motivation, have generated the most consistent predictors of second language learning success. Correlations of aptitude or motivation with language achievement range (mostly) between 0.20 and 0.60, with a median value a little above 0.40. Since aptitude and motivation do not show particularly high correlations with one another, they combine to yield multiple correlations which are frequently above 0.50. (Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003: 589)

The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

19

So, we can perhaps say that cognitive capabilities, aptitude, and cognitive and affective qualities, motivation, are the most important individual differences that can predict the success of language learning. Putting it simply, language aptitude can be referred to as the natural ability to learn a language (Richards & Schmidt, 2002). According to Skehan (1989), it involves auditory ability, linguistic ability and memory ability. In addition to aptitude, the ability to learn a language, a learner should possess a quality, motivation, to acquire the L2. In the next two sections, I review language anxiety, which usually works as a negative individual factor, like demotivators, to SLA. I then explore how SLA researchers have studied motivation.

Language anxiety In the list of individual difference constructs from Ellis (2008), the general term anxiety is used. According to Horwitz (2001, 2010), anxiety can be experienced at different levels. At a deeper or global level, language learners may have trait anxiety, the stable personality characteristic of being anxious. At a more momentary or situational level, they may experience state anxiety during some particular event or act. There is a persistent and multifaceted type of anxiety, called situation-specific anxiety (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991). Horwitz (2010: 154) views language anxiety in this category. It is similar to stage fright or test anxiety. Horwitz et al. (1986: 128) viewed language anxiety as ‘a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process’. What are the sources of language anxiety? Language teachers may want to know this so that they can minimize their students’ anxiety. Horwitz et al. (1986) developed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) based on conversations with students attending beginning language classes at the University of Texas who identified themselves as anxious. The FLCAS consists of 33 items relating to three sources of language anxiety: communication apprehension, tests and the fear of negative evaluation. However, in her review of language anxiety studies, Horwitz (2001: 118) noted that ‘in almost all cases, any task which was judged comfortable by some language learners was also judged stressful by others’. By distributing questionnaires, teachers can know which activities may become sources of anxiety for which students. However, we can see that identifying common sources of language anxiety for learners, in general, is not easy. Reviewing studies of language anxiety, Ellis (2008: 693) points out that there is disagreement about the relationship between language anxiety and learning. Researchers are not sure whether ‘(1) anxiety facilitates language learning, (2) anxiety has a negative impact on language learning, [or] (3) language anxiety is the result of difficulties with learning rather than

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

their cause’. While acknowledging the importance of language anxiety as a learner characteristic with regard to SLA, Dörnyei (2005) even notes: We find, however, considerable variation in the literature in the way the anxiety factor has been integrated into research paradigms: It is sometimes used as a separate independent variable and some other times as a constituent of a larger construct. This, as we have seen, reflects a similar ambiguity found in the psychological literature concerning the exact position of the construct in the overall picture of ID variables. (Dörnyei, 2005: 201) To sum up, it is worth noting again that language anxiety was claimed to be situation specific, distinguished from both trait anxiety and state anxiety. Scholars have not reached a consensus on some points, such as whether anxiety has a negative impact on language learning or actually facilitates language learning. They are also not sure how language anxiety fits into the overall picture of individual differences. Above all, as Horwitz (2001) admitted, it is impossible to find tasks that are anxiety-free for all learners. These points are very important to consider in the study of demotivators, too. First, researchers should identify what level of demotivators to focus on. It can be situation specific or something broader. Second, researchers may need to consider the possibility that demotivators may first have a negative impact on learners, but can facilitate their language learning in the long run. Third, researchers should consider where studies of demotivators fit in the overall picture of SLA. As Dörnyei (2005) comments, scholars could not reach a consensus on situating language anxiety constructs into SLA research paradigms. Although it is not an easy task, researchers on demotivators should consider how demotivator constructs fit into SLA research.

Motivation In this section, I give a brief overview of the motivation literature so that I can later discuss what we can learn from it for the study of demotivators. According to Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the systematic study of L2 motivation started in the late 1950s when two social psychologists in Canada, Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert, conducted a series of studies on language learning attitudes and motivation. Since then, researchers have focused on L2 motivation from different angles for more than 50 years. Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) have identified four phases that have been the focus of research over these five decades as: • •

The social-psychological period (1959–1990). The cognitive-situated period (during the 1990s).

The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

• •

21

The process-oriented period (turn of the century). The sociodynamic period (current).

Gardner and Lambert (1972), key researchers in the social-psychological period, focused on how language learners’ attitudes toward the target language community affected their desire to learn the language. Originally, Gardner (1985: 10) defined motivation to learn L2 as ‘the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity’. He listed three components, motivational intensity or effort, the desire to learn the language and attitudes toward learning the language. Probably the most influential aspect of Gardner’s theory is the concept of the integrative motive. Gardner (1985: 82–83) defined it as ‘motivation to learn a second language because of positive feelings towards the community that speaks the language’, and learners’ attitudes toward the specific language group are hypothesized to influence their success while learning the target language. Gardner tested his hypothesis with a socio-educational model (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993) and an extended model of motivation (Tremblay & Gardner, 1995). Interested readers can see Dörnyei (2005) or Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) for a thorough review of these models. In the cognitive-situated period, researchers realized the necessity of building a bridge between language motivation research and mainstream motivational psychology, such as attribution theory (Weiner, 1992), self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1993) and self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). They also moved away from the broad macro perspective of ethnolinguistic communities and learners’ general characteristics and attitudes and focused more on a situated analysis of motivation in specific learning contexts, such as in classrooms. This ‘motivational renaissance’, as Gardner and Tremblay (1994: 526) called it, saw a flourishing of empirical studies and theorizing about motivation in different contexts. During the process-oriented period, researchers began to focus on the motivational changes of learners. William and Burden (1997), Shoaib and Dörnyei (2005) and Ushioda (2001) are examples to which readers can refer. Dörnyei and Otto (1998: 48) presented a process model of L2 motivation that modeled sequences of motivation in pre-actional, actional and post-actional phases. Finally, in the current sociodynamic period, researchers are now interested in dynamic systems of language learners and contextual interactions. Ryan (2013) states: Clearly influenced by sociocultural theory, many motivation researchers no longer regard context as external to the individual, but rather their

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Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

concern is to explore the dynamic interactions between that context and the individual. (Ryan, 2013: 494) Reviewing motivation studies from the past five decades, we can now think of how demotivators fit in SLA. As the review of motivation research history suggests, studies on demotivation may need to look at two sides: demotivators both as cognitive factors and as factors in broader contexts. In the next two sections, I discuss two views of demotivation and how we can study demotivators from each perspective.

Demotivation as individual difference factors in SLA Some people state that demotivation is the ‘flip side’ of motivation (Keblawi, 2005), but the situation is not so simple. Demotivation can be seen as a process that an individual learner goes through. The learner may experience a variety of demotivators, such as boring lessons, teachers that she or he cannot get along with or the realization of a lack of purpose in learning the language. As I stated in Chapter 1, I see demotivators as ‘the specific internal and external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action’. Demotivators are factors that affect individuals. Demotivators negatively affect learners’ language acquisition process, and just like anxiety, this is related to all the constructs of individual differences that are shown in Table 3.1. Individuals differ in sensing which demotivators are demotivating. Some learners are more sensitive to a lack of communicative activities while others are less sensitive. In other cases, some motivated learners are not sensitive to any demotivators in English courses since they have strong goals to master the language on their own. Individuals differ in how they perceive the demotivators. In this sense, we can perhaps study learners’ sensitivity to demotivators. For instance, in order to understand who is sensitive to demotivators, teachers can distribute a questionnaire to their students to ask what events demotivate them. In the Appendix, I provide examples of questionnaires. These questionnaires were designed to ask respondents about possible demotivators. By analyzing the responses from each learner, teachers can understand their students’ individual differences. I will return to discuss this conceptual issue further when I describe the analysis of Kikuchi (2011) in Chapter 5.

Demotivation as Social and Environmental Factors in SLA As observed by Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the focus of L2 motivation research is shifting to sociodynamic aspects of motivation. Recently, several researchers (e.g. Shoaib & Dörnyei, 2005; Ushioda, 2001) have also

The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

23

pointed out that motivation should be seen as a dynamic process that changes over time. Furthermore, Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011: 156) note that ‘where the analysis of demotivation is concerned, it is clear that dynamic interactions with the immediate and wider social context of L2 learning, use and experience are central’. In this view, we should see demotivators as dynamic and socially constructed rather than treating them as static factors affecting learner cognition. This shift in focus corresponds well with the change of focus in the SLA field. Ortega (2011) comments: The field of second language acquisition (SLA) has been transformed by a process since the mid-1990s of profound critique against the cognitive foundations of the discipline and by the long-ranging deployment of socially oriented reconceptualizations of second/additional language (L2) learning. (Ortega, 2011: 167) Along this vein, we can see demotivators as factors that affect motivation in a negative way, and we may consider dynamic interactions within both the immediate and the wider social context. For instance, even though the grammar translation approach has been reported as a strong demotivator in English teaching in Japan, teachers may have a hard time using alternative approaches. Teachers who want to implement a communicative taskbased approach may be frustrated because of the pressure from their colleagues, parents or school. (See Wistner et al. [2012] for an investigation of the difficulties of implementing task-based approaches in Japanese high schools.) In Japanese high school culture, teachers should follow what other teachers do and work in harmony. They should not do anything different from other teachers, especially senior teachers. They need to send their students to good universities, given the school’s track record. Teachers would face severe criticism if they used a different instructional approach and then failed to send students to good universities. In this circumstance, teachers themselves may not be motivated in the classroom under pressure. As illustrated by the example above, we can explore demotivators from wider perspectives by studying beyond the classroom context. Inside the classroom, learners also have to deal with a variety of factors, such as taking other classes with their peers and having different teachers throughout their learning. Arguing for the importance of peer relationships as contextual influences to learner motivation and performance, Wentzel (2005) stated: …a full appreciation of how and why students thrive at school requires an understanding of a student’s social goals, including both those that are personally valued and those that contribute to the stability and smooth functioning of interactions and relationships with others. (Wentzel, 2005: 282)

24

Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

As she suggests, we have to understand learners’ personal social goals as well as those of their peers. In order to get along well with their classmates, some students study hard and some do not. If an active language learner with a strong goal to be a fluent speaker of the target language is surrounded by classmates who do not want to communicate in the target language, this may become a demotivator and the learner’s diminished motivation can also affect other learners’ motivation. Motivators and demotivators can come from peers in class. This interaction may be important to study. Finally, we can also study learners from wider contexts. Ushioda (2009) claims that we should study learner motivation from ‘a person-incontext relational view’ and suggests that the focus of motivation studies should be a focus on real persons, rather than on learners as theoretical abstractions; a focus on the agency of the individual person as a thinking, feeling human being, with an identity, a personality, a unique history and background, a person with goals, motives and intentions; a focus on the interaction between this self-reflective intentional agent, and the fluid and complex system of social relations, activities, experiences and multiple micro- and macro-contexts in which the person is embedded, moves, and is inherently part of. (Ushioda, 2009: 220) This quote summarizes the discussion that I have presented in this section. Looking from ‘a person-in-context relational view’, learner demotivation cannot simply be viewed as a cause or a product of learning experiences. Learners with their unique histories and backgrounds interact with a variety of motivators and demotivators. They may react in various ways since they feel and think about them differently. In the contexts that they are a part of, they meet different agents and are affected through their interactions. In studying demotivators, researchers may need to expand their research focus and study such complexities that language learners are dealing with in their everyday lives.

Summary In this chapter, I first reviewed key individual differences discussed in SLA literature. I then discussed how studies of demotivators fit in SLA after a brief review of two related constructs: motivation and language anxiety. Finally, I discussed how researchers can treat demotivators: as a possible variable in learners’ cognitive individual differences or as an environmental factor affecting learner motivation. How can researchers study demotivators from cognitive or social and environmental

The Importance of Demotivation in Second Language Acquisition

25

perspectives? In Chapters 4 and 5, I present quantitative studies on demotivators. In Chapters 6 and 7, I present qualitative and mixed method studies on demotivators. Quantitative studies examine demotivators more from perspectives related to cognitive and individual differences while qualitative studies and mixed method studies examine them more from social and environmental perspectives. After reviewing the literature on three research topics (demotivators, demotivation and strategies to deal with demotivation) as well as sample studies in the following four chapters, I hope that you will develop your own interest in finding a research topic in your own context.

4 A Survey Study to Test Demotivator Models

Introduction To the best of my knowledge, Kikuchi (2011) was the first published study in which the factor structure of demotivators in language learning was examined. Using responses from more than 1000 Japanese high school students, questionnaire data were obtained concerning learners’ perspectives on what demotivated them in their English language classrooms. In the following sections, I briefly introduce the instruments and software used in the study. Next, I present the detailed process of questionnaire development using Rasch analysis and qualitative analysis. I then show the process of data screening and preliminary analysis. Finally, I show the results of the statistical analysis of questionnaire data using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Although this chapter is the longest in the book, I hope that readers will understand the process of how quantitative researchers carefully design a questionnaire, pilot it and revise it using Rasch analysis. After describing how the questionnaire was developed, I present the results of an EFA and a CFA.

Instrumentation The Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire The Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire (see Appendix A for the Japanese version and Appendix B for the English version), originally used by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009), consists of three parts. In this study, the data obtained from the second part of the questionnaire were analyzed with the Rasch rating scale model and the data from the third part were analyzed qualitatively. The questions in the first part elicited the participants’ background information concerning (a) age, (b) sex, (c) experience staying abroad, (d) achievement on the STEP test (a test of English ability) and (e) motivation to learn English. In the last question, the students were asked ‘How motivated are you to learn English?’. The students were required to choose one of the following alternatives: 1: I have almost no motivation; 2: I have a little motivation; 3: I have moderate motivation; 4: I have high motivation. The second part of the Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire consisted of 35 items measured on a five-point Likert scale. These 35 items were designed 26

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to measure six constructs derived from previous demotivation studies: teachers (items 10–15), characteristics of classes (items 1–6), experiences of failure (items 7–9, 27 and 30), class environment (items 21–25, 28 and 29), class materials (items 16–20 and 35) and lack of interest (items 31–34). The question that was put to the students was: ‘How much is the following statement true for you as a demotivating factor?’. The students were required to select one of the following alternatives: 1 = not true; 2 = mostly not true; 3 = neither true nor untrue; 4 = to some extent true; 5 = true. The statements were based on Kikuchi (2009) and Kikuchi and Sakai (2009). The third part consisted of two open-ended questions asking the participants to describe experiences that increased or decreased their motivation to study English. The first question asked about experiences that increased their motivation and the second question asked about experiences that decreased their motivation. The respondents were asked to freely share their experiences in Japanese.

Demotivation Questionnaire After performing a Rasch rating scale analysis with the responses to the Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire and analyzing the responses from the open-ended questions, the questionnaire was revised and the Demotivation Questionnaire (pilot version) was produced (see Appendix C for the Japanese version and Appendix D for the English translation) and piloted. After conducting the pilot study, the Demotivation Questionnaire was revised and subsequently administered (see Appendix E for the Japanese revision of the Demotivation Questionnaire and Appendix F for its English translation). After responding to the same instructions as the previous version ‘How much is the following statement true for you as a demotivating factor?’, the respondents were asked to choose one of the following four responses for 40 items: 1 = not true; 2 = mostly not true; 3 = to some extent true; 4 = true. In Japanese, the demotivating factor was phrased as Yaruki wo nakusu mono. This phrase literally means a decrease in motivation to take action. While six items were deleted from the pilot version, four background questions originally written by Tanishima (1999) were added in order to ask for the participants’ estimates of their motivation to learn English. This information was used to compare participants who had high and low motivation for studying English. The results of the Demotivation Questionnaire were used to identify the relationships among the six factors of demotivation using CFA.

Software used for this study For quantitative studies, researchers usually use statistical software to analyze their data. In this study, I used Winsteps 3.1 to perform Rasch analyses, SPSS 15.0 for data screening and AMOS 16.0 to perform structural

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equation modeling (SEM). Since space is limited, I would like to direct interested readers to Bond and Fox (2007) for Rasch analyses, Green and Salkind (2005) for SPSS and Byrne (2009) for AMOS. These are excellent books for understanding the basics of the mentioned software, and I refer to these books in this chapter when necessary.

Developing a model of student demotivation Based on a review of studies of demotivation among Japanese learners of English, the model shown in Figure 4.1 was constructed and tested using CFA. This model tests the strength of two learner-internal demotivation factors, loss of interest and experience of failure, and four external factors, teachers, characteristics of classes, class environment and class materials. i5

i10

i6

i23 Class Environment

i17 i18

Teacher Behavior

i28 i35

i30

i37

i34

i40

i36

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Demotivators

i9 i4

Class Materials

i19

i12 i14

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i16

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Characteristics of Classes

i38

i25

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Experiences of Failure

i31

Loss of Interest

i32

i3 i11 i24

i7

i8

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i15

i33

Figure 4.1 Theoretical model of learner demotivation

i39

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Thus, one purpose of this model is to test the degree to which internal and external factors differ in their contribution as learning demotivators. This model also tests how teacher factors differ in terms of their strength as demotivators compared to characteristics of classes, class environments and class materials. The model consists of six constructs: teacher behavior (seven items), characteristics of classes (five items), class environment (six items), class materials (seven items), experiences of failure (six items) and loss of interest (five items).

Questionnaire Development In this section, I present the process of developing the Demotivation Questionnaire used in this study. Originally, Kikuchi and Sakai (2009) and Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) developed the Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire. To develop the Demotivation Questionnaire for this study, I analyzed qualitative data obtained from the original Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire. One part consisted of two open-ended questions asking the participants to describe experiences that increased or decreased their motivation to study English. I used the second question, asking about experiences that decreased their motivation, for this analysis. Based on the analysis, several items were added to create the Demotivation Questionnaire (pilot version). I piloted this version and analyzed it using the Rasch rating scale model. Some readers may not be familiar with the Rasch model, so I first summarize this model (see Bond & Fox [2007] for a detailed explanation of the model). I then explain the analysis of the qualitative data obtained from the Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire (2009). Next, I show the Rasch analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the 35-item Sakai–Kikuchi Questionnaire. Using this process, the final version of the Demotivation Questionnaire was constructed.

Using the Rasch model for questionnaire development A Rasch rating scale analysis was conducted to confirm the reliability and validity of the questionnaires and to obtain interval data to be used in subsequent analyses. King and Bond (2003: 3) state that the Rasch family of models ‘exhibits the property of specific objectivity, or, of producing fundamental measures-person-free estimates of item difficulties’. First introduced by Georg Rasch in 1960, Rasch analyses are recognized as a family of statistical techniques that can be used to assess the validity and reliability of tests and surveys. Several researchers in the field of Applied Linguistics (e.g. Apple, 2013; Irie, 2005; Sick, 2007; Weaver, 2005) in Japan have used Rasch analyses in their survey studies. The Rasch measurement model is a probabilistic mathematical model that makes it possible to establish the location of items and persons on a single measurement

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continuum. Item difficulty and person measures are calibrated on the same logit scale, which ranges from about – 5 to +5 with an item mean of zero. The Rasch model assumes that if a person endorses a more extreme statement, that person is also likely to endorse all less extreme statements, and that an easy-to-endorse item is always expected to be easily endorsed by all respondents (Wright & Masters, 1982). The Rasch model is useful for reducing complex data to a unidimensional variable because it constructs a one-dimensional measurement system based on the observed data (Linacre, 2006; Smith, 2002). All systematic variation in the data is collapsed into one latent variable and the observational residuals appear as random noise when the data fit the model. A review of the residuals allows researchers to detect which items and which persons misfit the construct of the dimension created by the Rasch model. In this study, the questionnaire data were analyzed with the Rasch rating scale model (Wright & Masters, 1982). The formula for the Rasch rating scale model is as follows (Linacre, 2006: 13): log (Pnij / Pni(j–1)) = B n – Di – Fj where Pnij is the probability that person n encountering item i is observed in category j; B n is the ‘ability’ measure of person n; Di is the ‘difficulty’ measure of item i, the point where the highest and lowest categories of the item are equally probable; and Fj is the ‘calibration’ measure of category j relative to category j – 1, the point where categories j – 1 and j are equally probable relative to the measure of the item. A Rasch analysis provides fit statistics indicating the degree to which the data fit the model. Item misfit can be caused by poorly written items, items measuring an unintended construct, uncooperative respondents who respond to the questionnaire randomly or the presence of different groups of participants with unique characteristics. In order to design a good questionnaire, this kind of information is very useful. By examining fit statistics, researchers can identify which items are not working well, or which participants were not answering questions properly. Four fit statistics are typically calculated, Infit mean square (MNSQ), Outfit MNSQ, and standardized fit statistics that complement the two MNSQ statistics: a standardized Infit statistic (Infit ZSTD) and a standardized Outfit statistic (Outfit ZSTD). As stated by Bond and Fox (2007), the Infit MNSQ statistic is an information-weighted standardized residual that is sensitive to irregular response patterns for items located near the person’s ability estimate or persons whose ability is near an item’s difficulty estimate. The residual values indicate the discrepancy between the predicted performance as defined by the Rasch model and the observed performance of the item or person. Infit MNSQ, which is favored by many researchers, is computed

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by weighting the squared standardized residual by its individual variances to reduce the effect of outliers (Smith, 2002: 210). Perfect fit to the model is indicated by an MNSQ value of 1.0. Values below 1.0 indicate dependency in the data while values above 1.0 indicate unexpected responses (Linacre, 2006). In contrast to the Infit statistics, Outfit statistics are more sensitive to the responses of persons whose estimated ability is well above or below the item’s difficulty. Outfit MNSQ is an average of the standardized residuals and, as such, is computed from the standardized sum of squared residuals across all observations. Like the Infit MNSQ statistic, values below 1.0 indicate dependency in the data while values above 1.0 indicate noise. In the standardized fit statistics, the MNSQ values are expressed as t-values in the t-distribution. Many researchers also report the standardized fit statistics, Infit ZSTD and Outfit ZSTD. Perfect fit to the model is indicated by a standardized value of zero. A Zstd criterion of >2.0 for person and item measures is the criterion that is often used to flag misfitting items at the p