A Qualitative Approach toward English Language Learning Motivation : A Closer Look at a Junior High School Girl's Narrative

Abstract

A great number of studies have been carried out in order to construct a more complete picture of English language learning motivation. Although such studies are able to provide a broad picture of learning motivation, (1) a dynamic interplay between motivation and other variables, and that of various types of motivational components, is not clear enough. At the same time (2) the results of the previous studies tend to be distant from actual classroom situations. In this study, we analyzed the narrative of a girl who is a first-grade student in a junior high school. As a result, a detailed and dynamic picture of English language learning motivation could be described, and a complicated mechanism of English language learning motivation was developed based on practical considerations. The results also show that the girl has: (1) an unsatisfied need to be praised through teacher feedback which tended to be disturbed by the classroom atmosphere; (2) an ambivalent feeling toward the relationship between low-level lessons and high-rank evaluation; and (3) mental strife due to the conflict between an awareness of the social demand for English and that of the absence of her own justification for learning English.