Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in L2 Learning

靜宜大學 英國與文學系 陳怡萱 Iris

Course: Thesis Writing

Outline

Introduction Literature Review Methodology Findings & Discussions Conclusion References

Introduction

How to teach students strategies to learn foreign languages continuously by self-motivation and

self-autonomy.

Carl Rogers: the educational focus should be away from “teaching” and toward “learning”.

The goal of education is the facilitation of change and learning. Learning how to learn is more important than waiting for teaching by instructors.

The purpose of the research is to examine the differences and efficiency of learning between

intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

Literature Review

Motivation refers to the intensity of one’s impetus to learn as well as the extent to which learners make choices about goals to pursue and the effort that will devote to that pursuit.

1) Intrinsic: those who learn for their own self-perceived needs and goals

2) Extrinsic: those who pursue a goal only to receive an external reward from somebody else are

extrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivated behaviors are aimed at certain internally

rewarding consequences which are feelings of competence and self-determination---

learning for one’s own sake.

Maslow (1970) Bruner (1966) praised the autonomy of self-reward and

claimed that one of the most effective ways to help both children and adults thinking and learning is to free them from the control of rewards and punishment.

Factors such as developing a relationship with learners, building learners’ self-confidence and autonomy, personalizing the learning process, and increasing learners’ goal-orientation all fall into the intrinsic side of motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is clearly superior to extrinsic.

Literature Review

This project is a study in the differences of learning between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation focusing on the efficacy and efficiency for their learning process.

The participants in this study includes 30 second-grade junior-high-school students aging from 12 to 14 enrolled in language learning in Feng-Nan Junior High School in Fengyuan City situated in Taichung County in April, 2008.

Methodology

Methodology

The research design is using a survey, which includes questions and statements to the participants who are expected to respond anonymously.

The participants are asked to fill out questionnaires which elicited information concerning their attitudes and motivations.

Purpose: to figure out which of the learning motivation (intrinsic motivation or extrinsic

motivation) will make the biggest efficiency in study.

Findings & Discussions

Through the questionnaires, the results indicate a striking effect of motivation of acquisition on performance in language learning.

There are 2 major findings to be discussed.

1) Learning motivation is passive and reluctant.

2) The participation of students is high whereas the motivation is passive and reluctant.

1) Their learning motivation is passive and reluctant

Most reasons are from long-term accumulating outside pressures (for example, school exam assessments, entrance examinations, and expectations from parents, and the like) to exclude learning English.

More than 4/5 of the participants in this project agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic motivation.

The participants said that they are more motivated to learn English in the relaxed, authentic and interesting ways rather than the cram and drill teaching ways.

Learning motivation is passive and reluctant

The participation is High

Class activities

? There are almost three-in-five students participating in

class activities. There is no direct ratio between low motivation and high participation.

2) The participation of students is high;

the motivation is passive and reluctant.

More than 60% students point out that most teachers provide related activities and small games to raise the motivation and interest of learners.

,是否專心聽講 熱衷參與課堂活動

9%

44%

31%

15%

1%0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

總是

經常

有時

偶爾

從不

Conclusion

The finding reflects a highly positive attitude

toward intrinsic motivation. According to the responses, the students felt that the intrinsic motivation had a significant effect on their language learning.

Conclusion

The results of this study clearly support the notion that the intrinsic motivation has strong advantages both for children and adults in acquiring the second language.

A future research is obviously required, but this is an exciting first step.

An additional interesting avenue of investigation might be to consider whether students themselves feel they benefit more from the language learning course.

References

Brown, H Douglas (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, 2nd Ed., New York: Pearson Education.

Gardner, Robert C.and Lambert, Wallance E.1972. Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, MA:

Newbury House Publishers.

Management-Issues. Engagement and motivation increase with age. Retrieved December 18, 2007, from http://www.management-issues.com

Liu Linda, (1988) “What will the World Be?—Teaching English Poetry in junior college”.

Thesis (M.A)-Providence University, Graduate Program of Department of English Linguistics, Taichung, Taiwan

Chu, Esther M.P, (1986). “A Research on teaching methodologies and their effectiveness for beginners in English”, Yangmingshan, Taiwan: Chinese Culture University Press