Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Motivation and teaching
Students will find it difficult to learn a second language in the classroom if they have
neither instrumental nor integrative motivation, as is probably often the case in
school language teaching, or if they feel negatively about bilingualism or are too
attached to monolingualism. Schoolchildren have no particular contact with the
foreign culture and no particular interest in it, nor do their job prospects depend on
it; their attitudes to L2 users may depend more on the stereotypes from their 
Individual differences in L2 users and L2 learners
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cultural situations than on any real contact. Only 36 per cent of pupils in England
thought learning French would be useful to them, according to the Assessment of
Performance Unit (1986). Teachers of French in England try to compensate for this
lack by stressing the career benefits that knowledge of a second language may bring,
or by building up interest in the foreign culture through exchanges with French
schools or bringing croissants to class, that is, by cultivating both types of motivat-
ion in their students.
Otherwise teachers may have to go along with the students’ motivation, or at
least be sufficiently aware of the students’ motivation so that any problems can be
smoothed over. Coursebooks reflect the writer’s assessment of the students’ moti-
vation. The coursebook Touchstone (McCarthy et al., 2005) reflects a world of
young people, some overseas students, meeting in the park or living with their
parents, babysitting for their friends, interested in TV and films, celebrities and
the Internet. This will be valuable to students interested in this lifestyle and an
alienating experience for those who prefer something else. The Beginner’s Choice
(Mohamed and Acklam, 1992) features the lives of multi-ethnic students in
England with cosmopolitan interests and worldwide contacts for house exchanges
and holidays. While this may be motivating for multilingual adult classes in the
UK, it is less relevant for single language groups of children in other countries.
In my own coursebook series English for Life, the location of the first book People
and Places (Cook, 1980), is a non-specific fictional English-speaking town called
Banford, with a range of old-age pensioners, children, teachers and businessmen.
The second book, Meeting People (1982), used English in specific locations in differ-
ent parts of the world, such as Hong Kong, London and New York. The third book,
Living with People (1983), took the specific location of Oxford in England and used
the actual supermarkets, hospitals, radio stations, and so on, as background, includ-
ing interviews with people who worked in them. The aim was that students at the
beginners’ level would be motivated by a non-specific English for use anywhere; at
the next stage they wanted to use English anywhere in the world; at the advanced
stage they might envisage living in an English-speaking country. Coursebooks differ
according to whether they prefer integrative or instrumental motivation from the
outset, reflecting educational priorities in particular countries, as seen in Chapter 7.
An integrative motivation for English may not be admissible in Israel or mainland
China, for example.
In a teacher’s ideal world, students would enter the classrooms admiring the tar-
get culture and language, wanting to get something out of the L2 learning for them-
selves, eager to experience the benefits of bilingualism and thirsting for knowledge.
In practice, teachers have to be aware of the reservations and preconceptions of
their students. What they think of the teacher, the course and L2 users in general
heavily affects their success. These are the factors that teachers can influence, rather
than the learners’ more deep-seated motivations.
Motivation also goes in both directions. High motivation is one factor that causes
successful learning; in reverse, successful learning causes high motivation. The
process of creating successful learning which can spur high motivation may be
under the teacher’s control, if not the original motivation. The choice of teaching
materials and the information content of the lesson, for example, should correspond
to the motivations of the students. As Lambert (1990) puts it while talking about
minority group children, ‘The best way I can see to release the potential [of bilin-
gualism] is to transform their subtractive experiences with bilingualism and bicult-
uralism into additive ones.’
Motivation for L2 learning 139

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