Language Culture and Curriculum
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: Eoghan Mac Aogain (St Patrick's College)
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Volume: 12 Number: 3 Page: 265–279
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Categorising Motivational Drives in Second Language Acquisition
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Christopher Frank Green
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The survey involved 1978 Cantonese native-speaking subjects undertaking a programme of English in the Workplace (EIW) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This number represents almost the complete
population of undergraduate students undertaking this mandatory course in their second year of tertiary-level study. The students answered a questionnaire, previously piloted in a sub-sample of 30, and
were assigned on the basis of their responses to the four categories of motivational regulation proposed in Deci and Ryan (1985): External, Introjected, Identified and Integra the conventional classification
of motivation into Extrinsic and Intrinsic, or Instrumental and Integrative, has serious limitations in the field of language learning and fails to provide a meaningful developmental model for students
and teachers. The pilot study drew attention to the need to add a category of Avoidant, for students for whom all of the expressions of motivation to learn English, were found to be excessive. The main
study showed that Identified Regulation was dominant (49%) and suggests that the transition from Identified to Integrated Regulation is the principal challenge facing teachers and students. Some 19% of the
students fell into the Avoidant category. The implications of the study are discussed.
© Multilingual Matters 1999
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