'French is the language of love and stuff': student perceptions of issues related to motivation in learning a foreign language

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Gender
Thinking skills
Modern Foreign Languages

How motivated are British pupils to learning a foreign language?

The researchers found that the pupils had:

a general desire to do well in learning a foreign language;
a fairly positive interest in, and liking for, foreign languages;
a strong desire to identify with speakers of a foreign language (an integrative orientation);
a strong internal sense of responsibility for their own learning. The pupils generally felt they made an effort in their learning and had a strong sense of positive results from their efforts;
a fairly high level of awareness of why they did, or did not do well, in foreign language lessons and a sense of knowing what they needed to do to perform better;
a generally limited use of metacognitive strategies despite recognising the importance of planning, goal setting, self evaluation and personal learning strategies;
a fairly positive feeling about their own abilities and success;
quite a high regard for the general level of teaching;
generally supportive parents; and
low perceptions of the cohesive nature of the language learning group.

Pupils did not consider it to be very important to learn a foreign language and did not find foreign language lessons particularly interesting or enjoyable - findings consistent with other research cited by the authors.

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction How motivated are British pupils to learning a foreign language? Are there differences in motivation between pupils of different abilities? Do boys and girls differ in their motivation to learn a foreign language? Are pupils more motivated to learn some languages than others? Are there differences in motivation between pupils of different ages? How could teachers improve pupils' motivation? How was the study designed? What are the implications of the study for schools and teachers of modern languages? Where can I find out more? Definitions of technical terms used in the study Send us your feedback Collated digests To view/remove/add notes and save your collated digests click here Get Word Reader 'French is the language of love and stuff': student perceptions of issues related to motivation in learning a foreign language This digest found in Gender Thinking skills Modern Foreign Languages Send to a friend Word doc 60KB Printer friendly Collate for later How motivated are British pupils to learning a foreign language? The researchers found that the pupils had: a general desire to do well in learning a foreign language; a fairly positive interest in, and liking for, foreign languages; a strong desire to identify with speakers of a foreign language (an integrative orientation); a strong internal sense of responsibility for their own learning. The pupils generally felt they made an effort in their learning and had a strong sense of positive results from their efforts; a fairly high level of awareness of why they did, or did not do well, in foreign language lessons and a sense of knowing what they needed to do to perform better; a generally limited use of metacognitive strategies despite recognising the importance of planning, goal setting, self evaluation and personal learning strategies; a fairly positive feeling about their own abilities and success; quite a high regard for the general level of teaching; generally supportive parents; and low perceptions of the cohesive nature of the language learning group. Pupils did not consider it to be very important to learn a foreign language and did not find foreign language lessons particularly interesting or enjoyable - findings consistent with other research cited by the authors.