Innovation in Language Learning
Exploring the Social, Religious and Family-related Factors that Motivate or Demotivate University Students to Learn the English Language: Qualitative Study
Musa Alghamdi, Yanbu English Language & Prep Year Institute, Saudi Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (Saudi Arabia)
Abstract
Abstract
Motivation is generally believed to be one of the main determinants that augment SL and FL learners to initiate and sustain target language learning (Guilloteaux & Dörnyei, 2008). Many pioneer works have been conducted to scrutinize L2 motivation with its multifaceted nature and its impact on the L2 education (Gardner and Lambert, 1972; Ushioda and Dörnyei, 2017). The current study aims to explore the religious and social factors that motivate or demotivate Saudi university students towards English language learning. Sixteen informants participated in this study: 8 imams (Mosque leaders) and 8 parents. This qualitative study explored and gained a deep understanding of the motivational and demotivational religious and social factors linked to Saudi university students’ English language learning. The researcher employed two types of interview: formal semi-structured, and informal qualitative. During the current inductive study, thematic analysis of the interview data was undertaken via NVivo and Microsoft Word to find the potential themes and sub-themes. The researcher employed thick description (Geertz, 1973) to explore the data and provide a deep analysis of it. The results indicated religious, social and family-related factors that either motivate or demotivate Saudi university students to learn English. The social-related factor played only a demotivational role. On the other hand, the religion-related factor played motivating role. Moreover, family factors played an influential role in both motivating and demotivating students to learn English.
Keywords:
Motivation-Demotivation-Society-religion-culture-Qulitative
References
Guilloteaux, M.J. and Dörnyei, Z. (2008) 'Motivating Language Learners: A Classroom-Oriented Investigation of the Effects of Motivational Strategies on Student Motivation', TESOL Quarterly, 42(1), pp. 55-77.
Gardner, R.C. and Lambert, W.E. (1972) 'Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning'.
Ushioda, E. and Dörnyei, Z. (2017) 'Beyond global English: motivation to learn languages in
a multicultural world', Modern Language Journal, 101(3).
Geertz, C. (1973) 'Thick description: towards an interpretive theory of culture', in Geertz, C.
(ed.) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
