Abstract
This study draws on the model of language learning investment to explore China’s LOTE (Languages Other than English) students’ learning motivation. Data collected through in-depth interviews with 35 university students were analyzed in an inductive way. The findings show that: (1) the participants invested in learning LOTEs because they had enough affordances (resources applicable to LOTE learning) and/or perceived target language-related benefits (economic, cultural or social ones) from LOTE learning, even though most of our participants were initially involuntary applicants; (2) students were reluctant to invest in learning their target language(s) and merely strove to fulfil their program(s) when they were lacking affordances, perceiving few benefits, or even devalued by the in-context ideologies. These findings provide important implications for LOTE educators to motivate their students, and for policy makers to improve China’s LOTE education.
Highlights
The first is that the various forms of language attainment are overlooked, and the second is that L2 learning is seen to be directly motivated by the need for social contact and integration, which ignores other contexts like foreign language learning in formal education
The findings reveal that despite their sometimes involuntary initial decisions, some students showed growing interest and motivation as they furthered their target language learning, i.e., becoming increasingly motivated as they discovered that their existing affordances might be applicable to their target language(s) learning, or else that they might be able to obtain benefits pertaining to the target language(s), including economic capital and cultural capital (Darvin & Norton, 2015)
This study manifests the applicability of Darvin and Norton’s model of investment in China’s LOTE learning contexts, and the interrelationship between identity, capital, and ideology: the perceived benefits and affordances pertaining to LOTE learning serve as the prerequisites for learners’ investment, while systemic patterns of control can demotivate learners’ investment by devaluing their affordances or depriving them of their perceived benefits
Summary
L2 learning motivation researchers have problematized the increasing English-LOTE imbalance (Dörnyei & Al-Hoorie, 2017; Ushioda, 2017), and discovered two reasons for it. LOTE-related motivation studies should consider the applicability of existing theories and methods from the English learning contexts. The field of L2 motivation research is experiencing a shift from a focus on the predominant psycholinguistic approach to a focus on sociological and anthropological perspectives (Norton, 2015). Compared with the psycholinguistic construct of motivation, which is criticized as fixed and unitary from poststructuralist perspectives, the construct of investment as conceptualized by Norton aims to capture the interrelationship between individuals and social contexts (Norton, 2013; Norton Peirce, 1995). An expanded model of investment has been developed, wherein language learners’ investment is seen to be co-determined by ideologies
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