Annotated Bibliography on L2 Learners’ Motivation

In this annotated bibliography I would like to focus on the possible relationships between individuals’ belief and their achievements, and on whether it is possible to affect their motivations consciously in order to get better achievements. I would also like to get a clear picture about the theories that are dealing with the psychological background concerning L2 learners’ motivation, moreover, I am also interested in the reliability of these theories. After some research, I was happy to realize that one of the most influential names related to this area of applied linguistics was Dörnyei, a Hungarian linguist, who is the author of two articles out of the three, and, he is also mentioned in and related to the third one, so I believe his name is definitely worth mentioning here.

Dörnyei, Z.(2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 5-30.

This article is mainly about defining and clarifying what motivation means exactly. It starts with a little psychological background to make the mental processes easily comprehensible, because later these ideas will appear again. It contains a very thorough general introduction about the complexity of motivation concerning (foreign) language learning, moreover, it makes the readers familiar with the most well-known previous and contemporary theories, notions and research related to this subfield of applied linguistics. In order to understand the contemporary concepts and ideas, some related facts about the historical background of language education are also mentioned. Last, but not least, after the introduction of these theories, the article also deals with these questions in practice. Motivational strategies, different approaches, motivating factors, advices about appropiate teacher attitudes and behaviours are also noted in this article.

In my opinion, this article was the most relevant to my interest, because it introduced the topic in details and made the most influential theories easily comprehensible, so I got acquinted with the psychological background of them, which made both the comparison and the analysis of some of the relevant theories easier.

Dörnyei, Z. (2014). Future self-guides and vision. In K Csizér & M. Magid (Eds.), The impact of self-concept on language learning (pp. 7-18). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

This article may not be related to my topic as straightforwardly as the previous one does, however, very interesting ideas that are important to understand where motivation comes from, have been collected here. In contrast with the first article, it is more up-to-date, in a way that it introduces recent theories and concepts. This article is mainly about the definitions of and differences between self-guides and visions, and these terms are introduced in a very thorough and professional way. The readers can get acquainted with the psychological explanations step by step, and as a result, the different sources of motivation can be understood. The article also contains very detailed information about the conditions for the motivating capacity of future self-guides, which indicates how complex is this phenomenon. After defining self-guides, visions and goals, the relationship between them and motivation are explained. The second part of the article contains many technical words, but the ideas that are related to my topic can be easily divided and interpreted.

I chose this article because it deals with the possible outcomes of individual’s positive beliefs. It gives precise definitions about the basic technical words and explains how these psychological processes can affect learners’ achievements in the future, so it is exactly about the possible relationship that I would like to examine.

Oxford, R. L. (1994). Where Are We Regarding Language Learning Motivation. The Modern Language Journal, 512-514.

This article is slightly  different from the others, since it consists of three different parts. It is actually a response article to three contemporary applied linguists’ articles, including Dörnyei. The first article was written in response to Gardner and Tremblay, who are interested in some of the new work on motivation, and were critical of some other other contemporary works, one made by the author herself. It is mainly about the popularity of the question of motivation, and the consideration of new kind of researches on unexplored areas, for example, looking at situational characteristics. The second article is about the possible reasons behind why the field of language learning motivation was not popular before and why it is now. It states that many of the contemporary theories are worth thinking about and the intelligent researchers and their findings also show that many perspectives are still waiting to be explored. Components of language learning motivation are mentioned, indicating its subfields and complexity. It is interesting, that Oxford and Dörnyei reached the same conclusion about how to motivate learners, even though they used different methods and lived in different parts of the world.

          Even though this article is different from the previous ones in content, it still relevant, because it highlights the problems concerning the contemporary theories, which I also mentioned in my introduction. Despite the fact that there are misunderstandings at this area, the author states that applied linguistics is still constantly developing and the theories are reliable and plausible, since the same conclusions could be achieved from different parts of the world.