Abstract
The present study had a globalization perspective on Iranian EFL learners’ motivation to learn the global language, English. It investigated the effects of technological variables such as the Internet and satellite television programs, and social issues like migration and willingness for education at universities abroad on motivation for learning English as a foreign language among Iranian learners. In order to conduct the study, 238 learners of English (107 females and 131 males) were randomly selected from four language teaching institutes in Shiraz, Iran. A questionnaire was first developed based on the operationalization of some aspects of globalization which were either related to instrumental motivation or integrative motivation. The data obtained from the administration of the questionnaire to the participants were later on analyzed and the results revealed that technological, sociological and scientific aspects created or intensified through the process of globalization influenced Iranian EFL learners’ motivation to learn English and that the participants were mainly instrumentally motivated.
Highlights
Most human behaviors originate from certain kind of “motivation”
This study demonstrates that the learners learn English for “instrumental” reasons as opposed to previous research conducted in Bangladesh, which concluded that “integrative motivation” functioned as the dominant motivational orientation for the students to learn English
The questionnaire included two types of items: 1) some items addressed technological advances such as computer, the Internet and satellite TV programs; sociological issues like migration, and scientific issues which all have been intensified through process of globalization and seem to have instrumentally motivated Iranian English learners to learn the global language with much greater interest
Summary
Motivation is commonly considered to be an inner drive, impulse, emotion or desire that moves one to a particular action. It is a highly complex term, widely used in everyday life and in many areas of social sciences, for example in various branches of psychology, educational studies and in applied linguistics. Gardener’s Socio-psychological Model maintained that successful language learners must be integratively motivated but the subsequent studies showed something else. It probably shows that EFL learners seem to have been more instrumentally motivated than their ESL peers This utilitarian orientation to foreign language learning in EFL context seems to have been accelerated by “globalization process” and the development of global communication
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