ESL students' motivation towards classroom learning : specific motivational components

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if learning-specific motivational components could affect students' L2 learning motivation. The study was conducted in black secondary schools in the Potchefstroom region. A questionnaire was compiled to investigate students' motivation towards course-specific, teacher-specific, and group specific motivational components. A total of 1 07 grade 1 0 students were randomly selected from three black secondary schools for the study. The results of the study indicated that learning-specific motivational components do affect ESL learning. In accordance with the students' responses, areas needing attention and improvement were identified for all three motivational components (i.e. course, teacher, and group). Course content was found to be uninteresting and irrelevant, the teaching method and teaching/learning materials were found to be unimaginative and uninteresting, .and learning tasks not to be motivating. With regard to the teacher, areas found most wanting were a demonstrable competence and to a lesser extent, a few aspects of personality. Group-specific components which seemed to have the most motivational potential were competitive and cooperative rewards structures, and the group gave strong indications of cohesion. It was also found that factors external to the classroom had great bearing on learning motivation. This study has left the impression that if students' opinions could be taken into account when designing learning programmers, their motivation, in general, could be significantly improved, as well as their performance and achievement in ESL learning.