Understanding L2 Demotivation Among Chinese Tertiary EFL Learners From an Activity Theory Perspective.

Chili Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704430

Abstract

This study reports on the results of a qualitative inquiry on second language (L2) demotivation among 14 Chinese EFL learners from the perspective of Activity Theory. Semi-structured interviews were applied to collect data. Through the qualitative content analysis approach, this study found that L2 demotivation prevailed among the participants, influenced by an array of mediational factors including subject-mediated, rule-mediated, community-mediated, tool-mediated, and labour-of-division-mediated factors. The findings imply that L2 demotivation results from the contradictory relationship among the above mentioned factors in the activity system and is a socially mediational construct. The findings shed light on the formulating mechanism of L2 demotivation and provide insightful implications for overcoming the detrimental effect of demotivation in the Chinese EFL context and beyond.

Highlights

Second language (L2) demotivation has been heatedly discussed in the past decades (Dörnyei, 2001)
This study found that the relationship between L2 demotivation and the socio-cultural factors could be interpreted by means of the proposed analytical framework from activity theory (Li, 2015)
The present study explored the L2 demotivation among a group of Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at a technological University from the activity theory perspective

Summary

Introduction

Second language (L2) demotivation has been heatedly discussed in the past decades (Dörnyei, 2001). Most previous studies have focused on describing demotivation and identifying its demotivators in English as a foreign language (EFL) class (Hu and Cai, 2010; Li, 2013; Moiinvaziri and Razmjoo, 2014; Kim et al, 2019). These studies suggest that L2 demotivation is caused by both internal and external factors. The EFL education in China is supposed to equip the learners with a good command of English proficiency and communicative competence. English bears paramount importance to the learners for a number of pragmatic reasons, namely, to pass the high-stake English tests such as the National English Matriculation, College English Test Band 4 (CET-4), to get a good job, and others (Gao et al, 2004)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion