Arts Collected Works - Research Publications
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ItemMotivation and demotivation of French beginner university learners in Australia(AV Aktuell Verlag, 2020)This study focuses on the motivation and demotivation of students of French at Australian universities. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis was performed to identify which factors motivate and demotivate 199 students who learn French at beginner level. Classical theories of motivation in second language (L2) learning are integrated with more recent theories on the ‘L2 motivational self system’ (Dörnyei, 2005; 2009a; 2020a) and positive emotions (Dewaele, 2010; 2011). Factors and categories of motivators and demotivators are structured in three levels of analysis – micro, meso and macro, drawing upon Gruba and colleagues’ (2016) model. It is argued here that motivators and demotivators belonging to different levels of analysis are closely interrelated. These concurrently influence students’ motivation as well as demotivation, but in different ways and stages. Pedagogical implications are listed to shed light on French learners’ goals and expectations at tertiary level within the Australian sociocultural environment.
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ItemUniversity Students’ Demotivation in Learning Second Languages: The Case of Australian Universities(IUScholarWorks, 2020)Prior studies report a tendency of university students in Australia to quit their beginner level second language (L2) courses at an early stage (Martín et al., 2016; Nettelbeck et al., 2007). Demotivational patterns are meta-analyzed to understand what hampers the interest in learning French, German, Italian and Spanish of continuing students, discontinuing students, and quitters over one year of studies at Australian universities. Such a distinction across categories of students is offered in line with Martín et al.’s (2016) research. Demotivators are structured on three levels of analysis drawing on Gruba et al.’s (2016) and The Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) frameworks, which encapsulate three levels of analysis, specifically micro, meso and macro. Findings suggest that beginner L2 students in Australia are demotivated by all three levels of analysis in very dynamic and interchangeable ways. Students were found to concurrently experience very different degrees of demotivation over time.
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ItemInfluences of willingness to communicate and foreign language enjoyment on second language learners' motivation(State University of Applied Sciences in Konin, Poland, 2020-12-17)Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) motivate university students who learn a second language (L2). Previous research suggests that WTC drives students to use an L2 with a specific group of people (MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei, & Noels, 1998) while FLE motivates students to carry on their L2 learning process (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014). This study focuses on the influence of WTC and FLE on university beginner students of French, German, Italian, and Spanish in Australia. Responses to five five-point Likert scale items and four open-ended questions of a questionnaire and interview narratives are analyzed to understand if and to what extent WTC and FLE shape students’ decisions to: (a) start to learn an L2 (b) continue learning an L2, and (c) discontinue learning an L2 drawing on Dörnyei and Ottó’s (1998) process-oriented approach. Results show that not only psychological reactions to the learning process are involved in students’ motivation, but also contextual elements shape L2 learning dynamics and WTC (Yashima, 2002). The Australian multicultural but, at the same time, monolingual environment shared by English-speaking countries (Ushioda, 2017) plays an important role in increasing and/or hampering students’ desire to communicate in the studied L2. Lack of communicative opportunities may be detrimental to students’ enjoyment within and outside of the formal learning environment at Australian universities.