Umman Novruzlu Q&Q Coursework 27.02.2013

A qualitative study on the topic: “Why do people learn English? What is the main motivation of people? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic?

Umman Novruzlu

EF International Language Center in Cambridge.

Table of contents:

Introduction________________________________________________3

Literature Review____________________________________________3

Methodology_______________________________________________4

Results____________________________________________________5

Conclusion_________________________________________________6

References_________________________________________________7

Appendices_________________________________________________7

Introduction

Language is a means of communication which makes relationships stronger, brings business to an international scope and helps us to understand different cultures and nations. English has become a global language of the world since the last century. There are approximately 1 billion people who speak English as a second language.[ CITATION Grd00 \l 1033 ] The question is to identify what makes people learn this language. The following study will focus on the learning process as well as students motivations. The main stress will be on student’s motivation: whether it is extrinsic or intrinsic. I have been interested in this topic since I started to learn English in high school. As a student in international language school in Cambridge, it might be quite interesting to research and find out the reasons: why do people actually learn English? Is it personal interest and satisfactory or is it all for future career? We might hypothesize that for the majority of people the answer will be future career. In addition, the difference between genders will be taken into consideration and appropriate comparisons between male and female learners will be made. Finally, not only motivation itself, but also the levels of student’s incentive will be examined.

Literature review

There has been done a great deal of different researches on the language topic. I have investigated several researches on this field. One of them was made by the students of Concordia University, Montreal. The topic was “First and second language knowledge in the language classroom”. The purpose of this study was to understand how the teaching method can be developed by using the first language in acquiring the second. The results showed that there were some cognate relationships between French (first language) and English (second language) which makes learning English easier.[ CITATION Hor10 \l 1033 ]

Another investigation was made by Hungkuang University and Da-Yeh University students about: “Personality type, perceptual style preferences and strategies for learning English as a foreign language” topic. The idea was to find out how these variables influence acquisitioning English as a second language. As a result they made a graph with different elements of learning process due to these variables. Thus, students with different personality types and cultural background showed diverse level of obtaining English.[ CITATION Mei12 \l 1033 ]

These are all relevant to my topic; however, the most suitable research for me was the following: Dr. Azhar Mahmood and Ms. Sara Iqbal, students of International Islamic University, Islamabad (PAKISTAN), made a research on the next subject: “Difference of student anxiety level towards English as a foreign language subject and their academic achievement.” The work was mainly focused on the difference between genders anxiety level. Firstly, it describes anxiety and the role of anxiety in learning language. After, the definition was given and description of anxiety as a psychological construct was provided. Further, two different types of anxiety were explained. The main issue was to compare the levels of anxiety between genders. The findings revealed that female students are more likely to have high anxiety level than male students. Over all, the results presented that students with low anxiety level showed more academic achievement.[ CITATION Azh10 \l 1033 ] This study is related to almost all English learners as everybody experience the feeling of anxiety when learning it. My study is focusing on motivation while learning language. Therefore there is cognate relationship between my study and foundational reference.