Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations

Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations in Language Learning: Advances in Theory, Research, and Applications by Zoltan Dornyei

-Three different forms of Gardner’s (1985) motivation theory is integrative orientation, integrativeness and integrative motive.
-Alternative theoretical approaches are cognitive approaches in psychological research such as self-determination theory (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, student autonomy), attribution theory (causal attribution) and goal theory (specificity and frequency of the goal) and Schumann’s neurobiological theory (stimulus appraisal in novelty, pleasantness, good/need significance, coping potential and self-and social image; mental foraging).
-The classroom environment such as course-specific motivational components, teacher-specific motivational components and group-specific motivational components started to be examined. These situated approaches have three research directions; the willingness to communicate (WTC), task motivation and learning strategies.
-A process-orientated approach is needed to capture dynamic character and temporal variation. In the motivational process, there are three phases; preactional stage, actional stage and postactional stage.
-Research on L2 motivation have two areas; the systematic development of motivational strategies and the formulation of self-motivating strategies. Motivational strategies have four parts; creating the basic motivational conditions, generating initial student motivation, maintaining and protecting motivation as well as encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation. Self-motivating strategies consist of five classes; commitment control strategies, metacognitiue control strategies, satisfaction control strategies, emotion control strategies and environmental control strategies.