Motivation.

...

others in the classroom, promoting

collaborative learning. However, it is notoriously known that the motivation

behind the learner’s learning varies widely and stems from numerous sources,

internal to the learner, external, or both.

The work conducted by Gardner in the area of motivation was largely influenced

by Mowrer, whose focus was on first language acquisition. Mowrer proposed

that a child’s success when learning a first language could be attributed to the

aim to gain identity within the family and then the wider language community.

According to Mowrer, to communicate, become part of the family is

what makes children succeed in learning their mother tongue.

Using this as the basis for his own research Gardner went on to investigate

motivation as an influencing factor in new language acquisition.

the effect of motivation on second language learning is one variable, which,

combined with other factors, influences a learner’s success.

Motivation is a vital factor in learning a foreign language, which is influenced

and affected by various variables: personality variables, the attitudes of learners,

their learning styles ( their manage of their time e. g). It is something

all individuals, aiming to learn a new language, bring with them in one form or

another. All what matters is to identify it, encourage it, feed it now and then, and

watch it grow.

Along these lines, learning a new dialect should rely on a variety of factors

that are likely to promote success. Language is part of one’s identity and is used

to convey this identity to others. Consequently, foreign language learning has an

important impact on the social being of the learner, since it involves the

adoption of new social and cultural behaviors and ways of thinking.

No matter what the purposes behind acquiring a second language is, what cannot

be disputed and denied is the fact that motivation is an important variable when

it comes to examine how successful second language acquisition is.

REFERENCES

[1]. M. Williams and R. Burden, Psychology for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

[2]. R. C. Gardner, Social Psychology in Second Language Learning, Edward Arnold Ltd, London, Great Britain, 1985.

Mowrer (1950 cited in Larsen-Freeman and Long 1994).