Successful Pupils' Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivational Factors for Learning English in the Classroom

Malmö högskola

Lärarutbildningen

Kultur, språk, medier

Examensarbete

10 poäng

Successful Pupils’ Extrinsic and Intrinsic

Motivational Factors for Learning

English in the Classroom

Inre och yttre motivationsfaktorer hos högpresterande elever för att

lära sig engelska i klassrummet

Åsa Bergdahl

Angelica Thörn

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate what motivates six successful pupils at upper secondary school to want to learn English as a second language in a classroom situation. This was done by looking at extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors. The method used within this thesis is qualitative and we performed individual semi-structured interviews. The results of this study indicate that, unfortunately, in an educational ambience extrinsic motivational factors are dominant. The most interesting finding of this study is the strong connection between successful pupils and having goals that go beyond achieving high grades. This implies that if we as teachers can get our pupils to look beyond the grades and also get them to see the need that they have for knowing English, we can get our pupils to be more successful.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ... 7

THEORY ... 8

The concept of motivation... 8

Motivation and language learning ... 8

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors ... 9

Extrinsic motivational factors ...

10

Intrinsic motivational factors ...

13

AIM ... 15

METHOD ... 15

Participants ... 16

Material ... 16

Procedure ... 17

Ethics ... 19

RESULTS ... 19

Presentation of the interviewees ... 19

Focus areas ... 21

Goals of learning English ...

21

People that affect the pupils’ motivation to learn English in the classroom ...

24

Other factors that affect the pupils’ motivation to learn English in the classroom ...

26

DISCUSSION ... 30

Extrinsic motivational factors ... 30

Intrinsic motivation factors ... 35

REFERENCES ... 38

APPENDIX ... 39

INTRODUCTION

We believe that one of the prime forces at work in human nature and culture is motivation. Motivation is what drives us to accomplish and succeed in all areas of life. In the classroom situation, that means that motivation is one of the cornerstones of how willing or unwilling the pupils are to learn. During our teaching practice we have often seen examples of how the level of motivation and level of academic success often seem to go hand in hand. The utopia would then be if the teacher could motivate all pupils to be active learners with genuine interest in the subject. However, this goal can be difficult to achieve, as all pupils are individuals and every individual has his or her own reasons for motivation. A step on the way to reach the goal of getting as many pupils as possible motivated, would be to try to find as many of the underlying factors as possible for what drives pupils to want to learn English, so that teachers can use this information when teaching in order to create an environment which promotes the pupils’ motivation.

At the same time as motivation to learn is different from pupil to pupil, a pupil’s motivation may differ from subject to subject. Even though it would be interesting to research pupils’ motivation to learn in general, we as English teachers to be have decided to focus our research on successful pupils’ motivation to learn English as a subject in the school setting. Above all, we want to find out where motivation comes from – if it comes from within or outside and why.

THEORY

The concept of motivation

Motivation, like the concept of gravity, is easier to describe (in terms of its outward, observable effects) than it is to define. Of course, this has not stopped people from trying it.

(Dörnyei, 2002, p. 7)

In order for us to be able to refer to and use the term motivation, we will, with the help of different theories, define the concept of motivation with respect to how we will use it throughout the thesis.

According to Dörnyei, motivation “is best seen as a broad umbrella term that covers a variety of meanings” (p. 1), but at the same time he defines motivation as responsible for why people choose to perform an activity, how much effort people put into that activity and also how persistent they are when performing the activity (p. 7). Similar to Dörnyei, Passer & Smith sees motivation as “a process that influences the direction, persistence and vigour of goal-directed behaviour” (2004, p. 327). However, regardless of the choice of words, the definition of the concept of motivation seems to comprise a goal and the perseverance and the intensity to reach that particular goal.

Motivation and language learning

According to Lightbown & Spada, motivation is one important characteristic that contributes to successful language learning (2002, pp. 50-51). Theorists have come up with numerous explanations of what motivates pupils to learn a second language, and we believe that motivational factors make up a cobweb of different reasons, all intertwined with each other. In order for us to be able to explore the relationship between motivation and language learning we will try to find as many of these threads as possible and then try to systematise them in a way so that they can be made lucid. Although there are many different ways in which you could arrange all the different motivational factors, we have chosen to organise them by extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors.

The use of the words extrinsic and intrinsic is, however, somewhat problematic since there does not seem to be a consistent definition of the terms in relation to what it in fact is that is extrinsic and intrinsic. Passer & Smith mentions extrinsic and intrinsic

motivation (p. 328), whereas Noels prefers the terms extrinsic and intrinsic orientations

(2002, p. 43). By extrinsic both Passer & Smith (p. 328) and Noels (p. 46) mean that you perform an activity in order to achieve an external goal or avoid punishment, and by intrinsic they all mean that you perform an activity because of the satisfaction that you get from the activity in itself (Passer & Smith, p. 328, Noels, p. 45). What distinguishes Passer & Smith from Noels is, however, the terms motivation and orientations, since these terms imply different ways of looking at motivation. The first term suggests that the motivation itself comes from outside or within, while the second one suggests that it is rather the different triggers of motivation that comes from outside or within.

Glasser (1996) provides a third way of looking at where motivation comes from. Although he does not use the terms extrinsic and intrinsic, in our opinion he is still important to bring up here, since he represents another viewpoint on where motivation comes from. According to him all motivation comes from trying to satisfy the basic needs which all humans have. The one that is interesting for us within this thesis is the need of amusement (pp. 19-20). He means that even if you are being affected by the world around you, yet all motivation comes from within, since it is only you as a person who truly decides whether or not and how to perform an activity. Even though we agree with Glasser that it is only you who can make your own decisions, we believe that what motivates you, are factors which can be both external as well as internal and which we think functions as triggers for motivation. These factors we will call extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors.

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors

Since we now have chosen a definition of motivation, our next step will be to explore where that motivation comes from, which we will do in the terms of extrinsic motivational factors and intrinsic motivational factors.

Extrinsic motivational factors

As mentioned above, extrinsic motivational factors refer to the performing of an activity in order to achieve an external goal. Noels bases her research on Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory which suggests that the external goals you strive for vary as to the extent of how much they are in fact self-determined (p. 45). The different external goals are divided up into four categories which can be placed on a continuum based on the degree on how determined they are. The most self-determined category, and therefore the least extrinsic of the extrinsic motivational factors, is called integrated regulation. This type of regulation “is fully governed by the self” and “means that the activity is chosen because it is coherent with other aspects of the self” (p. 48). An example of this would be a person who wants to learn English because knowing another language makes them feel educated. A less self-determined category than integrated regulation is identified regulation, where the goal, e.g. to learn English, is only the tool for achieving a main goal that you value highly, such as studying and/or working abroad or to increase your career opportunities. Noels means that if a pupil chooses to engage in an activity, it is because “its value is recognized to be important for some aspects of the self” (p. 48). The third category is introjected regulation. Although the motivational factors are extrinsic, the pupil internalises these factors which results in that he or she now self-imposes pressures or rewards. Such a pupil “is often motivated to demonstrate their ability or to avoid failure in order to regulate their feelings of self-worth” (p. 48). An example of this would be learning English in order to avoid embarrassment or gain respect since in our society of today, being able to speak English is often expected from you. The least self-determined category is

external regulation. This category involves motivational factors that are purely

extrinsic such as studying English only because it is part of the course plan and not because the pupil sees it as a necessity. Noels divides extrinsic motivational factors into four different categories but what really separates them is the degree of self-determination that they imply, i.e. to what extent the different regulations are assimilated to the self (p. 48). In other words, the integrated regulation is the category where your own needs and values concord most with the external motivational factors and external regulation is the category where the external motivational factors concord the least with your own needs and values.

Even if Noels’ research explores some of the extrinsic factors, the way she chooses to categorise them forces her to omit social factors from the continuum. However, Noels means that we need to consider the fact that people in our surrounding influence our motivation for learning the L2 and calls these people others (p. 55). Examples of people that influence our language learning are teachers, family members and members of the L2 community. According to Noels, research shows no coherent results on which relevant other influences language learning the most. An example of how the teacher can affect a pupil is by how the pupil perceives the teacher’s behaviour. Further, family members, and particularly parents, may have an effect on the pupil’s motivation to learn English, in such that they may influence both beliefs about and attitudes towards language learning and the L2 community (p. 56). Regarding the members of the L2 community, Noels refers to various researches that show that quality, frequency and pleasantness of contact with members of the L2 group is of great importance and will influence motivation. As Lightbown & Spada say, “if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or to fulfil professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it” (p. 56). Also the access to L2 media sources can increase the pupil’s perception of the communicative value of the L2 (Noels, p. 57).

This brings us into Gardner’s research on integrative motivation. According to Lightbown & Spada he, together with Lambert, coined the term integrative

motivation. By this Gardner and Lambert mean that you learn a language “for

personal growth and cultural enrichment” (Lightbown & Spada, p. 56). Gardner himself sees Integrativeness as one of the variables that lead to motivation for second language learning, and by this he means that if you have a wish to come closer to the L2 community you will have a genuine interest in learning the second language (Gardner, 2002, p. 5). It could be argued that integrative motivation is an intrinsic factor, since it implies that language learning is more an end in itself than a means to an end because of this genuine interest in the activity of learning the second language (Noels, p. 51). However, if we are to follow our definition of extrinsic factors, we need to stress that the language is in fact learned because of an external goal, which is to be able to interact with the L2 community, and as

Noels says “language learning helps one to achieve a distinctly different goal” (p. 51). This could also be compared to the category identified regulation where, as mentioned above, learning the second language is seen as a tool to achieve the main goal.

Another term that Gardner and Lambert coined is instrumental motivation which Lightbown & Spada refer to as “language learning for more immediate or practical goals” (p. 56). Similar to integrative motivation, instrumental motivation also refers to language learning as a tool to achieve another goal than the pleasure in the activity per se. What separates them is, however, the goal itself, which in integrative motivation is to interact with the L2 community whereas in instrumental motivation, the goal is rather practical such as getting a better job.

As we mentioned in the introduction success and motivation often seem to go hand in hand. We do not wish to explore the complexity of the relationship between success and motivation in depth. Yet it can not be ignored that success has an impact on motivation. In Alvinsson’s thesis, which draws on the work of Ellis, this type of motivation is referred to as resultative motivation which is explained as an increase of the motivation due to good test results and educational success (1999, p. 5). Even if success is related to inner feelings of joy and excitement, yet the criterion for what is a good test result is regulated by external factors such as teachers and course requirement and because of this we would argue that this type of motivation comes from extrinsic factors. Also, the inner feelings of joy and excitement do not come from performing the activity itself, which is a requirement for being an intrinsic factor.

Another theory which goes deeper into the relation between motivation and success within the learning context is the achievement motivation theory. The essence of this theory is that it is about “a person’s tendency to strive for successful performance, to evaluate her performance against standards of excellence, and to feel pleasure at having performed successfully” (Hetherington, 2003, p. 562). According to this theory, motivation depends on what type of achievement goal you have. Pupils who have performance goals tend to be “concerned with ‘looking smart’, obtaining positive judgements, and avoiding

negative judgements of their ability” (p. 563) as opposed to learning goals which we will explain under intrinsic motivational factors. The extrinsic factors that influence motivation we then see as the various feedbacks that the pupil receives from the teacher and also the pressure that peers lay on each other.

To sum up, extrinsic motivational factors consist of various reasons for learning the L2, ranging from different goals, such as being able to get a better job and to interact with members of the L2 community, to different people who influence your motivation for learning the L2, such as parents, teachers, peers and the L2 community.

Intrinsic motivational factors

It could be argued, as Glasser does, that all motivation ultimately comes from within and even though we agree with this, we still think, as mentioned above, that there are both external and internal factors that affect motivation. So far we have looked at extrinsic motivational factors; we will now move on to look at intrinsic motivational factors. As mentioned earlier, we use the following definition for motivational factors that are intrinsic: to perform an activity because of the satisfaction that you get from the activity in itself.

To continue where we left off in the previous passage, we will look further at achievement motivation and what intrinsic factors this theory implies. As mentioned above, motivation depends on what type of achievement goal you have. Under extrinsic motivational factors, we discussed pupils who have what is called performance goals whereas the intrinsic achievement motivation goal is called

learning goal (Hetherington, p. 563). This type of goal refers to pupils who “are

more concerned with improving their skills and learning new things than they are with specific judgements of their ability” (p. 563). Although it does not specifically mean that you perform an activity for the mere satisfaction of it, it still shows that your motivation for performing the activity is not affected by extrinsic factors such as judgements of teachers, parents and peers. Furthermore, achievement motivation theory means that pupils who have learning goals also tend to be mastery-oriented, which means that even if the pupil fails at some point, this can in fact increase motivation and spur them to future success (p. 563).

Noels, moreover explains which of the intrinsic factors affect motivation. Similar to her division of extrinsic factors she also chooses to categorise, what she calls intrinsic orientations, although unlike the extrinsic factors “the three subtypes of intrinsic motivation are not hypothesized to vary in terms of self-determination” (p. 49). The first one she mentions is called Intrinsic-Knowledge and means that an activity is performed because of the pleasure that you feel because you develop knowledge or satisfy your curiosity (p. 45). An example of this would be that the pupil looks up a word out of curiosity and not because he or she needs to. The second one is called Intrinsic-Accomplishment and means that an activity is performed because of the feelings of pleasure that you get from surpassing yourself and mastering a difficult task (p. 45). Although this may seem to remind of the mastery-orientation in achievement motivation theory, this type of intrinsic motivational factor has more to do with the process of achievement rather than the consequences of the achievement. Noels’ example of Intrinsic-Accomplishment is that “[t]his orientation might describe the satisfaction associated with successfully attaining fluency with a difficult grammatical construction” (p. 45). The last type of intrinsic motivation Noels mentions is Intrinsic-Stimulation, which is when pupils enjoy or take pleasure in something because they find it beautiful. An example would be a pupil who finds the English language beautiful with regard to its sounds, melody and rhythm (p. 45).

AIM

Since we believe that one of the most important factors in second language acquisition success is motivation, the aim of this thesis is to investigate what extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors that drive six successful pupils at upper secondary school to want to learn English as a second language in a classroom situation. However, although we would think it both interesting and necessary to offer suggestions on how to motivate pupils, it is not possible for us, within the scope of this essay, to do so. Our aim is rather to find the underlying factors of motivation and thereby raise the awareness of them. Our hope would then of course be that our findings could be a step on the way of helping to create a more motivating English lesson environment.

Our research question is: What extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors do successful

pupils have for learning English in the classroom?

METHOD

In order to find out what motivates pupils to learn English in the classroom we have chosen to do qualitative interviews and use these as our primary data source. The advantage of having a qualitative approach is the possibilities to examine in greater depth the complexity of the underlying motivational factors. The disadvantage, on the other hand, of using a qualitative method is that the material is too narrow to base any generalisations on. However, it is not our aim to make any generalisations, but rather to look more closely into what reasons for motivation that we can find by interviewing a few pupils.

The type of qualitative interview we will use is semi-structured. The reason for choosing this type of interview is that it consists of guiding, open-ended questions which to a greater extent gives the opportunity to follow the lead of the interviewee and thereby explore the subject in more depth (Hatch, 2002, p. 94). According to us, the aim with our thesis can best be explored through interviews that are as close as possible to a conversation, since we believe that meaning and understanding is often created through dialogue and interaction. In this way we will be able to get a more thorough understanding of what drives pupils to want to learn English. Because of this,

observations are not an option. Moreover, we do not see informal interviews as an option either, since they are not used as the primary data source (Hatch, p.92).

As mentioned above, our interviews will consist of open-ended, guiding questions that have been constructed from the themes that we have identified in the different theories used in our thesis. From the interview answers we will then identify focus areas and analyse our finding in relation to these. After that we will discuss our findings in relation to whether they are extrinsic or intrinsic motivational factors.

Participants

The participants were chosen from pupils at different years and programmes at one of our partner schools. The criteria for selecting the participants were that they, in the eyes of their teacher, are successful and motivated. Year and programme did not matter when selecting the pupils, since it is not our aim to look into the aspect of age and choice of programme. Among the pupils who fulfilled the criteria we then chose six pupils randomly. Following Hatch, our samples would fit into three categories: “homogenous”, since the participants all have the similar characteristics, “criterion”, since the participants fit particular predetermined criteria and “convenience”, since the participants were easy to access (Hatch, pp. 98-99). The reason for doing six interviews is that we, within the time-limits of this essay, did not have the possibility to study and analyse a greater material. On the other hand, we think that six interviews will give us enough material to answer our research questions exhaustively.

Material

Based on our findings in the literature we first came up with app. 70 questions that we found relevant. By analysing and systematising our questions we then narrowed them down to seven. These seven questions all aim at bringing out motivational factors from different perspectives. The 70 original questions were kept on a separate sheet from the interview manuscript as a support for us when doing the interviews (see appendix). Hatch says that an interviewer creates “probes or follow-up questions based on the responses they receive” (p. 95). However, although it was our intent to use these strategies, we do not feel confident enough to rely on our skills as interviewers, and we felt that we needed our probes as a help to keep the interview going. Below are our seven questions.

1. What is your relation to the English language?

(Vad har du för relation till Engelska? )

2. English is part of your course plan. If this were not the case, would you still have chosen to study English in school?

(I er kursplan så ingår det att läsa engelska. Om det inte varit så, hade du ändå valt att läsa engelska?)

3. What do you think about the teaching of English in school?

(Vad tycker du om engelskundervisningen i skolan? )

4. What do you think about learning English in school? Is it fun, boring, necessary? Has it always been like that or what has made you change your mind?

(Vad tycker du om att lära dig engelska i skolan? Kul, trist, nödvändigt? Har det alltid varit så eller vad är det som fått dig att tycka så?)

5. Which people and factors influence your performance in English? How great is their influence would you say?

(Vilka personer och faktorer påverkar dig för hur mycket du anstränger dig med engelskan?)

6. How much energy do you put into your English learning?

(Hur mycket energi lägger du ner på engelskan?)

7. How do your results in English affect you? If they turn out to be good or not?

(Hur påverkas du av dina resultat i engelska? Om det går bra /om det går dåligt?)

Procedure

Initially we contacted the pupils to ask if they were willing to participate in interviews regarding our thesis, and after that we contacted the parents to get their approval. We booked the same room for all the interviews to take place in. This room is situated at the pupils’ school, is soundproof and is built for the purpose of recording pupils on tape. The interviews were carried out individually with both of us interviewing and the

interviews were recorded on tape by using the equipment in the room. Before starting the interviews, the pupils were told that our thesis is about their relation to English. The reason for not giving them the word motivation was that we believe that it could limit their answers. Also during the interviews we do not mention the word motivation, since we did not want to lead our interviewees on too much. Our aim with the interviews was not to have a discussion about their motivation, but rather to find the underlying factors for their motivation.

Each interview lasted for app. 40 minutes, which was enough for us to collect sufficient material to analyse. We did not want to go on longer since that could exhaust the pupils and thereby make the material less reliable. Since Swedish is the pupils’ native language as well as ours, the interviews were carried out in Swedish rather than English in order to avoid that the communication and the complexity of the answers would be affected negatively by a language barrier.

Before we started the tape recorder we small-talked with the interviewees in order to achieve a relaxed atmosphere and also we encouraged them to answer honestly since, as we told them, there are no right or wrong answers. Then, when the recording started we asked them to tell us about themselves, e.g. which program they attend and why, and also what they do in their spare time. This is by no means enough to get to know the pupils, but we saw this as a way of receiving information that we could possibly link to our interview questions in order to make them more personal and thus making the answers more personal.

Even though we had a structure of seven questions, as mentioned above, we did not let the order of these questions control the discourse. Hatch, says, “researchers have questions about certain topics in mind, but […], they expect the interview to move in the direction that the informant takes it” (p. 95). We used our seven questions as a starting-point and then, depending on the pupil’s answer, we moved in the direction we thought appropriate at the time. By this we mean that even if we were talking about question number one and the pupil’s answer would lead us into question number four, we would proceed with question number four and then we would go back to question number one and then continue with question number two and three. Moreover, even if there were follow up questions that did not belong to the ongoing discussion of a main

question, this would not stop us from asking them if we thought they were relevant to what was being discussed.

Ethics

As mentioned above, the pupils were informed about the reason for the interview. Even though we did not mention the word motivation to the pupils, we do not consider it unethical since we think that the interviews do not touch upon sensitive matters, and also we do not mislead the pupils. When choosing our interviewees we made sure that we got the parents consent for those under 18. Before we started the interviews we informed the participants of their right to withdraw at any time, both during the interview and afterwards, and that they did not need to answer the questions if they did not want to. Furthermore, we assured the participants that their anonymity is secured and by doing so, hopefully they would feel more at ease to answer as honestly as possible, since they knew that they would not be held responsible for their answers.

RESULTS

Presentation of the interviewees

In order for you as a reader to get a better understanding of the pupils that we have interviewed, we will present them below. The pupils have been provided with fake names and also some of the genders have been interchanged in order to protect the pupils’ anonymity.

LISA

This pupil attends the International Natural Science Programme, which she chose because she is interested in science and languages and also because this program has a lot to offer in terms of doing exchange with foreign schools and getting work experience abroad. Through international scout-meetings she got to know an Englishman, with whom she still keeps in touch on a regular basis. In her spare time she enjoys reading English fiction such as Harry Potter and Stephen King.

ANNA

This pupil also attends the International Natural Science Programme. She states similar reasons as Lisa for choosing this programme and also she wants to study medicine at the

university. She has lived in Saudi-Arabia for nine years, where she attended an American school and made a lot of friends with whom she still keeps in touch, both via e-mail, chats, and visits. Apart from this, she has also travelled a great deal to the USA, England, Canada and Australia, feels very close to the American culture and English almost seems to be her native tongue.

BOSSE

Bosse is yet another pupil attending the International Natural Science Programme, but the reasons for choosing it are different. He is interested in the natural sciences, but the reason for choosing the international program is that he did not want to go in the same class as his twin sister, who attends the ordinary Natural Science Programme. He does not mention a specific interest in languages or the fact that the program offers exchange possibilities and work experience abroad. However, he has been to a language course on Malta. He is in the 3rd _{year and since English is not compulsory then, he has chosen to} study the CAE-course. Although he feels as if he does not have much spare time because of school-work, he exercises and tries to see his friends as much as possible.

LASSE

This pupil attends the International Natural Science Programme too. He is interested in the natural sciences and languages, although he seems to be more interested in Spanish than English. He appreciates the possibilities that this programme gives him regarding exchange with foreign schools and work experience abroad. Through this programme he has been to Spain once already, where he made Spanish friends who he still keeps in touch with and with whom he speaks English. He spends most of his time with school-work, but also has time to dance salsa and see his friends.

BRITTA

In contrast to the other pupils who attend International Natural Science Programme, Britta has no idea why she chose this programme. Although she has not been to an English speaking country, she still gets to use English a couple of times a year when travelling to Poland through Germany to visit relatives. Her main interest is music, she plays guitar, writes lyrics in English and hopes to be in a band soon.

OLLE

This pupil attends the Social Sciences Programme because he thinks that it gives him a broad and general upper secondary school education. In his spare time he likes to play football, guitar and see his friends. Year 7-9, he attended a bilingual class where some of the subjects studied were in English. He has been to both England and Scotland a couple of times with his family and he has relatives in Ireland. He says he likes the English culture, thinks there are a lot of things worth seeing and he also thinks the people there are friendly.

Focus areas

We will now look at what results we have found that affect our interviewees’ motivation to learn English. We have chosen to present the results under three different focus areas rather than relating one interview after another. The reason for doing this is that we believe that there are three different main categories of factors that affect motivation, which we have identified through looking at the pupils’ answers. Furthermore, we want to be able to look at the pupils’ answers within each of these categories in order to facilitate analysis and conclusions of which extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors that drive the pupils to want to learn English. However, the analysis of what extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors we have found will be done in the discussion section. In other words, this chapter is a presentation of the results, i.e. the pupils’ answers to our interview questions, whereas the discussion chapter is an analysis of these answers in relation to the theory. All quotations in this chapter are our own translations.

Goals of learning English

As Dörnyei sees it, motivation is responsible for why people choose to perform an activity. Since we, in this thesis, have chosen to focus on and interview pupils who are successful and motivated, one would assume that these pupils have a goal concerning why they want to learn English. Generally it seems as though our interviewees want to achieve high grades, and by that they mean the MVG-grade. This will clearly affect their motivation for wanting to perform well in the English classroom. However, as we have stated before, our main aim with this thesis is to look at what motivates the pupils to learn English. Because of that, we think it is

important to differentiate between what is the motivation to achieve high grades and the motivation to actually learn English. Whereas the motivation to strive for high grades implies how much effort the pupils put into doing their best in the English classroom it does not say anything about where the motivation to learn English comes from. As we will bring up below, all pupils state to have other goals with why they want to learn English. Thus, we would argue that achieving high grades is rather an important factor to why the pupils strain themselves in the classroom than it is the goal in itself. Some of the pupils mention that they of course put more effort into assignments that they know are to be evaluated or graded. As Lisa says: “when it is an essay that you’re supposed to write, then you, of course I spend more time on it, since it’s supposed to be like scrutinised and graded and so on”. In a school setting, the fact that the grades influence the pupils to how much they will strain themselves can never be overlooked, but as Bosse, who takes the CAE –course, answers our question about whether his goal of learning English is to achieve high grades: “well, not just that, I want to learn, of course I want to learn English as well, otherwise I wouldn’t have chosen to take this course, so of course it’s not only about the grades”. In other words, it is clear that Bosse has other reasons for wishing to learn English than merely achieving high grades. What is interesting to find out is then what these other goals of learning English in fact are.

Instead of grades, the most common goal seems to be the wish to actually learn English. However, the pupils all have their different reasons for wanting to learn English. One of the pupils, Lisa, has an actual interest in the English language, which could be compared to what Noels says about Intrinsic-Knowledge. She reads Harry Potter first in Swedish and then in English in order to see how the books have been translated. She also expresses a genuine interest for the characteristics of the language: “this might sound geeky but I actually think that studying grammar is most interesting […] I find it exciting to see how other languages are constructed compared to Swedish”.

Another reason for wanting to learn English as a goal per se seems to be one that Noels mentions viz. that the access to L2 media sources can increase the pupil’s perception of the communicative value of the L2. Most of the pupils say that since

English, through TV, music and the Internet, is such an integrated part of our everyday life they find it both useful and necessary to be able to speak English. Also the fact that it is such a global language is another contributing factor. As Lasse says, it is necessary to learn English since it is so widely spread, but at the same time it is fun to learn English because you will then be able to communicate with many more people, and as he expresses it: “it’s really cool that there is a language that everyone knows”. We think that this is a display of what Gardner calls integrative motivation, since, although he sees learning English as a necessity, he also has a wish to come closer to the L2 community. Just as this pupil says, English is a language that “everyone” knows, so we would argue that the L2 community of English is much greater than what the native-speakers of English constitute, since it is spoken all around the world. We have also interviewed one pupil, Anna, who even wants to settle down in an English-speaking country, which is yet another step of coming closer to the L2 community. When asking Anna what she wants to use English for later in life and what she feels is her goal of learning English she answers: “I don’t want to live in Sweden when I … grow up … but, I rather want to live in an English-speaking country”.

Another goal of learning English seems to be that the pupils want to study and/or work in an English speaking country and therefore they see English as a useful tool although the reasons for wanting to study or work abroad are different from pupil to pupil. For example Britta mentions that, by studying or working in an English speaking country and thereby learning English better, she wants to increase her possibility to work anywhere in the world, since English can be used almost everywhere. This would fit into what Noels says about when the goal, e.g. to learn English, is only the tool for achieving a main goal that you value highly, such as studying and/or working abroad or to increase your career opportunities. In this case the pupil’s main goal is to increase her career opportunities and learning English by studying or working abroad is the tool to reach that main goal. Another pupil, Bosse, mentions that it is not so much the increased career opportunities that tempts him to study in an English speaking country, but rather the opportunity to do something different and gain experience. According to us, this is also a sign of integrative motivation in the way that Lightbown & Spada put

it when referring to Gardner and Lambert, that you learn English for personal growth and cultural enrichment.

People that affect the pupils’ motivation to learn English in the classroom

In the theory chapter, we refer to Noels’ relevant others such as parents, teachers, family members and members of the L2 community, who she argues influence language learning. According to our findings, parents’ influence on our interviewees does not seem to be very strong since the pupils seem to put enough pressure on themselves as it is, although this pressure mainly seems to concern the grades. When it comes to motivation for learning English, however, we have found one example where a parent’s influence matters. In this case it is Olle’s mother’s own interest in Great Britain and the English language that influences him. He says that his mother likes Great Britain very much and she is also the one who thought he should go in the bilingual class in year 7-9 since she thinks it is very important to learn English. When we asked him which people influence him to how much effort he puts into learning English he answers “mum, very much mum […] well, she loves English TV-series and forces me to watch a lot of detective series and stuff like that” and although he thinks it can be a bit too much sometimes, he thinks it is fun.

Furthermore, as Glasser says, amusement is one of the basic psychological needs that people are motivated to try to satisfy. Because of this we believe that fun lessons will lead to increased motivation. Regarding the influence of the teacher, all pupils except Lisa seem to agree that teachers play a big part when it comes to making the lessons fun and interesting. Bosse says that: ”well, I think that studying English has always been quite fun […] but that’s probably because I’ve had pretty good teachers”. Also Lasse says: ”I think that if it’s fun or not depends a lot on the teacher […] if you have a teacher who isfun, and like accommodating then it will actually be fun no matter the subject.

Another pupil, Britta, means that if the teacher is an interesting person and gives interesting lessons, she herself feels more interested in taking part in those lessons. However, she also says “well, it is not that it’s crucial … I mean that the teacher cannot make you interested in the subject if you already hate it … but they can

always … spice it up a bit”. Also the teacher’s knowledge of English seems to matter. Olle finds the lessons more enjoyable if the teacher is competent, or as he puts it himself: “in the 1st year we had another teacher … well, I didn’t think that he was so … I thought it should be better than it was … it felt as if he wasn’t that competent […] I thought it was too boring […] it wasn’t fun at all, so the teacher we have now is better since she feels more competent”. He also says that “well, if you have a good teacher you’ll think it’s fun because they know much and then you think it’s more fun and then you too give more as well”.

Furthermore, we have found a factor that might seem obvious, but which we want to bring up here since both Lisa and Lasse mention it, and that is that the teacher has an effect on how much you strain yourself if you want to perform well, since the teacher is the one who mainly decides what tasks are to be carried out and also the one who grades you. To that Lasse says: ”it’s pretty much the teacher … if the teacher is like … well, gives homework and checks it I will automatically … do my homework”.

Something else that affects the pupils’ motivation is feedback. Some of the pupils mention that the positive feedback that you receive from the teacher is very important since, as Lasse says, it enhances one’s self-confidence: “I think it is important that [the teacher] gives positive feedback too … because … well … you need to know which things you’re good at and which things you’re bad at […] just so you don’t think you’re completely, well … it’s the self-confidence so that you don’t think you’re completely bad”.

What we have noticed when interviewing the pupils is that they tend to be

mastery-oriented, which means that they do not give up if they fail momentarily.

Because of this, one could expect that in the same way as failure can trigger the pupils to work harder (see next focus area), negative feedback might function the same way. However, even if most of the pupils think it is useful to know what they need to improve, they seem to react neutrally to negative feedback. Only Britta states that “it’s motivating […] indeed” to our question whether negative feedback functions as an incentive to work harder.

As mentioned in the chapter on theory, Noels says that research shows no coherent results on which relevant others that influence language learning the most. Even though there might be many different people that influence the pupils’ motivation, yet we have found that our interviewees all seem to agree that the most important person for how much effort they put into learning English is themselves. As Anna puts it “it is mostly I myself who motivates me to learn English, it’s what I want to do… in the future, that motivates me […] I don’t feel that I need…. that much motivation from other people”.

Other factors that affect the pupils’ motivation to learn English in the classroom

As we discussed in the first focus area, we think that the grades are an important factor to how much effort the pupils put into doing their best in the English classroom. The pupils’ main reason for wanting to achieve high grades seems to be that they know they will need good grades for future university education, which they all more or less aim at. As Lasse answers our question to why it is important to achieve a high grade: “because I want to be able to go on to further education when I finish upper secondary school, and then you have to have good grades”.

Further reasons for why the pupils want to achieve high grades could also be that high grades are connected to a feeling of self-worth and inner satisfaction. If we connect this to what Noels says about introjected regulation, the reason for wanting high grades would be that the pupils are motivated to demonstrate their ability through high grades in order to regulate their feelings of self-worth. Lisa says that her main goal of achieving an MVG-grade is not the grade in itself, but rather the pleasant sensation of feeling good about yourself: “well to be able to feel, good wow, it’s a great feeling”. Of course she also believes that good grades can open doors in the future: “well you never know, you might need good grades [laughter] but so far I have no idea what I want to do when I leave school […] and then I might just as well have … I mean, so far I haven’t tortured myself by working hard, so it’s not that bad … so I might as well just go for it [laughter]”. We believe that this means that even though this pupil values a high grade for the future, it is rather the feeling of achieving a high grade without putting in too

much effort that is the main motivating factor. As she expresses it: “you know MVG- is the best grade you can get […] because that means that you have achieved an MVG but with putting in as little effort as possible”.

Furthermore, achievement motivation theory also means that grades are satisfying in themselves. A good grade represents a successful performance so the pupils evaluate their performance against the grades; and a good grade leads to a feeling of pleasure at having performed successfully. As Lisa says, “well, it has always been fun [to learn English], I have always been quite successful in … the English lessons in school […] and that has made me feel more motivated” . In other words she has always enjoyed studying English since she has always performed well and that in its turn has made her feel more motivated about learning English in the classroom. This could also be compared to what Alvinsson says about resultative

motivation viz. that this type of motivation is explained as an increase of the

motivation due to good test results and educational success. As another pupil, Olle, expresses it: “if it goes well then of course you will feel pleased and then you kind of become more motivated to do well next time too”. Moreover, generally all the pupils seem to find learning English easy. Easy mastery, then, also seems to contribute to that the pupils feel more motivated to learn English.

Some of the pupils mean that learning English is in fact more fun and motivating when you are allowed to think for yourself and when the tasks are challenging, so that you feel that you develop your knowledge about English. As Bosse answers our question about whether he thinks it is fun to learn English: “yes it is fun […] you get to think for yourself […] well write essays and read more challenging books” . This, we would argue, seems to be related to what Noels refers to as

Intrinsic-Accomplishment, that what motivates you is the feeling of pleasure that

you get from surpassing yourself and mastering a difficult task.

As mentioned earlier, our interviewees tend to be mastery-oriented, which means that they do not give up if they fail momentarily. They say that failing can rather function as a trigger for them to work harder next time and as Olle means, he finds it motivating to obtain a result that has not lived up to his expectations. When answering our question on how he is affected by poor results in English, Olle says:

“if I do poorly I feel like damn it, I’ll do better next time […] I have to pull myself together and I feel that I bloody well have to make it next time”.

Another factor that is related to the pupils’ motivation for learning English in school is the time-aspect. Most of the pupils say that were it not for the fact that they do not have enough time, they would have liked to work even more with English than what is possible now. Even if the time-aspect is a factor that decreases motivation, we still think it is important to bring up since it shows that the pupils would have liked to work more and harder with English, had there been time. As Lasse puts it: “well, if you don’t have anything else to do … then it’s fun to like … do some exercises and things like that with text assignments but … and like write a bit and so on … like writing essays at home and things like that can be quite fun, but it is just a pain when you have to do a lot of other stuff … because then you only have time to rush through it”.

A factor that enhances the feeling of relevance of the English lessons in school is the amount of English media that the pupils are exposed to in their everyday life. It could be argued that there is in fact a xenogamy between English media and the English classroom that increases the pupils’ motivation to learn English. As mentioned above, the fact that a major part of TV-programs, lyrics and websites that the pupils watch, listen to and use are in English, and that they are such an integrated part of their everyday life, makes the pupils feel that it is both useful and necessary to be able to speak English. As Bosse says: “since English is so common in TV and music and so on and it feels like it would be quite natural to learn it in school… I think so since it’s a language that you ought to know very well”. Also, it works the other way around viz. that when the pupils encounter an expression on TV, which they have learned in the classroom they will feel that what they learn in school is more relevant. Britta says that she feels that working with grammar feels more useful and relevant when she, for example by looking at TV, notices that people actually use what she has learned in school.

Moreover, as mentioned above, Glasser says that amusement is one of the basic psychological needs that people are motivated to try to satisfy. Hence, in order to try to find out what types of tasks increase the pupils’ motivation, we asked them

what makes a lesson fun. One example is that most of them seem to enjoy working with authentic material. As Lasse answers our question to if the teacher uses a lot of authentic material: ”yes, yes […] I think it’s very good […] well, that makes it more vivid … so well … I think it’s good”. Anna, on the other hand, would have liked to use more authentic material. She says that reading more authentic material “would definitely be more fun” and she also means that it would improve your English “I think you’ll learn much more […] even if it might be a bit more difficult”. Other examples of what the pupils seem to enjoy are oral activities such as oral presentations, reading fiction, writing essays and listening to music. Anna says that she especially likes oral presentations and writing essays because she feels that those types of tasks are more essential since “it feels like I’m learning something when I present something or if I … if I write something”. Anna, as well as Lisa and Bosse, also enjoys reading very much. Lisa says that “reading fiction is what I enjoy the most” and “what I like the most right now is probably to write texts in English and like to like … play with the words and so on […] and that is difficult in English but it’s … it’s fun too” when we ask her about her favourite task in the classroom. Bosse thinks English lessons are fun when they get to “do interesting stuff, I mean reading interesting texts, I think that is what I enjoy” and “well, grammar exercises can be quite fun because they can be pretty simple […] sometimes it’s also fun to discuss a lot of stuff if it’s something interesting, and then it might also be fun to read some more difficult texts”. Regarding grammar exercises, Britta says that “to study grammar and stuff like that is perhaps not too much fun but you notice that it’s useful […] it’s of course fun when you get it and you kind of notice that it’s like ‘aha, that’s how it works’ and it’s a bit of that aha-reaction, so yeah it’s fun but in another way if you put it like that, the actual studying of grammar is not so much fun”. Finally, Lisa has yet another reason to why she thinks it is fun to learn English: “just the mere fascination of being able to express yourself in another language”.

DISCUSSION

Our aim with this thesis was to find as many of the motivational factors as possible that drive six pupils at upper secondary school to learn English as a second language in a classroom situation. We have presented theory on what motivation is and which extrinsic and intrinsic factors affect motivation. In order to connect theory to how motivational factors exist in practice, we have interviewed six pupils. In the previous chapter we have presented the results from these interviews and it is now time to discuss our findings in relation to which extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors we have found that affect our interviewees’ motivation to learn English.

Since we have only interviewed six pupils, it is not our aim with this thesis to generalise our findings. Concerning the validity, we believe that although we have not nearly been able to find all extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors for why the pupils want to learn English in the classroom, we still believe that we have found enough reliable material to draw conclusions on.

Extrinsic motivational factors

As we have mentioned before, extrinsic motivational factors refer to the performing of an activity in order to achieve an external goal. In our theory chapter we have drawn on Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory as presented by Noels, Gardner & Lambert’s

instrumental and integrative motivation, Hetherington’s definition of achievement motivation theory and finally Noel’s own research in general.

According to our definition, motivation seems to comprise a goal and the perseverance and the intensity to reach that particular goal. In our results chapter, we have looked at what different goals the pupils have to learn English, which people and other different factors affect their motivation to learn English in the classroom. In this passage we will look at what extrinsic motivational factors we can identify from our findings.

To start with Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory, they mean that there are four different categories of external goals, which are placed on a continuum depending on how self-determined the goals are. The categories are called integrated, identified,

among our interviewees is the identified regulation, where learning English is a goal that is seen as a tool for achieving another goal that is important for some aspects of the self. For most of our interviewees, the main goals with learning English are to improve career opportunities in general or to study or work abroad in order to improve international career opportunities and also to raise their competence on an internationalised labour-market. This also coincides with Gardner & Lambert’s

instrumental motivation which means that you learn a language for immediate or

practical goals such as getting a better job.

When it comes to the fact that all the interviewees aim for high grades, it could be argued that that also belongs within identified regulation, since the pupils state similar reasons as above for wanting high grades, i.e. that they want to improve their future possibilities concerning both education and career opportunities. All of the pupils are ambitious and know that they want to go onto further education eventually and that is also the reason for why they are motivated to achieve high grades. We do, however, not believe that the grades are the reasons for why they are motivated to learn English, but that the grades rather function as an incentive to their motivation for learning English.

Another type of regulation from Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory is the

integrated regulation. As explained in the theory chapter, this type of regulation is fully

governed by the self and means that the activity is chosen because it is coherent with other aspects of the self. An example of this would be a person who wants to learn English because knowing another language makes them feel educated. Although the pupils do not mention it specifically, the fact that they aim at high grades could imply that an important factor to their motivation for learning English is that they want to identify themselves as being educated. Whether knowing English makes them feel educated we do not know. However, from the fact that they think it is both useful and necessary to be able to speak English since it is such an integrated part of their everyday life, it can be inferred that they would have felt uneducated if they were not able to speak English. It seems to us that the pupils’ own aspects of their self is that they see themselves as being a part of an international world and that they do not want to see themselves as being limited by language barriers. Therefore we believe that they are motivated to learn English since it is such an international language.

It could be argued that nowadays it is also expected from you that you are able to speak English. English is required if you want to work abroad or study in an English-speaking country and also if you want to work on the Swedish labour-market. Because of this the pupils feel that they more or less need to learn English in order to gain a sense of self-worth which would then be an example of introjected regulation. However, it is interesting to notice that the knowledge of that it is useful to know English seems to be so imprinted on the pupils’ minds that they do not seem to reflect on why they need English to a greater extent. Of course the pupils have their reasons for learning English, but those reasons seem to have been internalised into their self-concept.

What we could not find any examples of is Noels’ fourth category external regulation which means that you learn English only because it is part of the course plan and not because you see it as a necessity. As mentioned before, our criteria for choosing the interviewees were that they, in the eyes of their teacher, are successful and motivated and as we assumed, these pupils have a goal regarding why they want to learn English in the classroom. Of course, a pupil who would not be motivated to learn English could yet be successful and appear to be motivated, but in that case motivation would only concern achieving high grades and not so much wanting to learn English as a goal per se.

As we said in the theory chapter the relationship between success and motivation cannot be ignored. We did also find that there is a connection between those two and that pupils who perform well seem to be more motivated to do well next time too, which Alvinsson refers to as resultative motivation. However, although success seems to increase motivation, this motivation seems to regard achieving high grades and not learning English, since the feeling of pleasure comes from having performed well rather than the joy of learning. On the other hand, another aspect of what success might lead to is that it becomes more fun to learn English, which in its turn seems to lead to increased motivation for learning English. Also, success might lead to a feeling that English is easy to learn and vice versa. In fact all three components, which you could call success, fun and easy mastery, all seem to affect both each other reciprocally and the motivation.

Our interviewees tend to be what achievement motivation theory calls mastery-oriented since when failing momentarily they do not seem to give up. Failing rather seems to be

a trigger to increase motivation. In the theory chapter we have placed

mastery-orientation as an intrinsic motivational factor since it belongs with learning goals which

we argue to be an intrinsic motivational factor. However, after having analysed our interviews we feel that mastery-orientation is more of an extrinsic motivational factor, since it is external factors such as grades and test results that trigger the pupils’ motivation. As we mentioned in the result chapter one could expect that negative feedback would function the same way as poor grades and test results, but this is only the case for one pupil whereas the other pupils seem to react neutrally to negative feedback. Regarding positive feedback on the other hand, it affects you positively by enhancing the confidence. We have, however, not found any evidence of that self-confidence increases motivation because, in order to do that, we would need to look further into areas such as how personality and emotion affect motivation, which is not possible for us to do within the scope of this essay.

Yet another extrinsic motivational factor that we brought up in the theory chapter is

integrative motivation, which means that you want to come closer to the L2 community.

We have found three different examples of this type of motivation. The first one concerns the wish to be able to communicate with people all over the world, i.e. as we say in the results chapter, we see the L2 community of the English language as much greater than what the native-speakers of English constitute. The next example is a pupil who wants to study in an English speaking country in order to do something different and gain experience. The last example is that one pupil wants to settle down in an English speaking country. Gardner argues that if you have a wish to come closer to the L2 community you will also have a genuine interest in learning the second language. We have, however, not found any evidence that enables us to draw such a conclusion. What is interesting to see on the other hand, is that the pupils do not only value English as a tool to get a better career, but that they also have a genuine interest in coming closer to the L2 community.

Furthermore, regarding the members of the L2 community, as mentioned in the theory chapter, Noels refers to various researches that show that quality, frequency and pleasantness of contact with members of the L2 group is of great importance and will influence motivation. As we can see in the presentation of the pupils, they all have had or still have contacts with the L2 community to various extents. As mentioned above it

seems to us as if the pupils’ own aspects of their self is that they see themselves as being a part of an international world and that they do not want to see themselves as being limited by language barriers. One reason for this could be these contacts to the L2 community, which has made them realise the communicative value of the L2 language.

Yet another extrinsic factor that increases the pupils’ motivation is, according to Noels, the amount of English media that the pupils are exposed to in their everyday life since it enhances the pupils’ perception of the communicative value. What we have found is that all pupils see English media as such an integrated part of their life, that they feel that it is both useful and necessary to be able to speak English and that in its turn, we would argue increases their motivation to learn English.

When it comes to relevant others, as stated in the results chapter, we have found that our interviewees all seem to agree that the most important person for how much effort they put into learning English is themselves. According to our findings, parents’ influence on our interviewees does not seem to be very strong. However, we think that the parents influence them more than what the pupils seem to believe. We only have our interviewees’ answers to rely on and therefore we can only make assumptions based on their stated lack of influence from the parents. However, we believe that it is improbable not to be affected by your parents’ values, which in this case regards the importance of learning English. By contrast we think that it is more likely that the parents’ values have been internalised by the pupils, and that the pupils now think of these values as their own.

According to Noels, yet another relevant other is the teacher. What we have found is that certain characteristics of the teacher seem to matter. The pupils mention that when the teacher is “good”, “interesting” and “competent” it makes the lessons more fun and interesting, which we would argue is a contributing factor to motivation. According to Glasser amusement leads to motivation, however, in this case we cannot interpret whether the motivation is for learning English or merely putting in more effort in the classroom.

Intrinsic motivational factors

It seems to us as if the pupils in general are very focused about wanting to learn English which then implies that they have learning goals. In other words, they seem to be concerned with improving their skills and learning new things. To have learning goals also means that you do not focus on specific judgements of your ability that much. Nevertheless that does not mean that our interviewees are not affected or ignore their results or the feedback they get, but rather that they are not to a very great extent affected by extrinsic factors such as judgements of teachers, parents and peers.

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, Noels’ definition of intrinsic motivation is that you perform an activity because of the satisfaction that you get from the activity in itself. When deciding on what criteria we would choose our interviewees, we thought that we would find many examples of intrinsic motivational factors. However, we have only found a few examples that would be applicable to Noels’ definition. Although we have found examples of tasks that the pupils enjoy, we have not found any indications that the satisfaction they get from performing these activities in general would lead to increased motivation for learning English. Rather, the fact that they enjoy performing certain activities might lead to that the pupils are more likely to make an effort in the classroom. Yet we have found one pupil who appears to be motivated to learn English by her interest in the language. This pupil’s interest in grammar tasks, playing with words when writing essays and translation comparisons could be compared to what Noels refers to as intrinsic-knowledge, since it is the pleasure of performing these activities that seems to be one of the factors that motivate her to learn English.

Even though we have not found that many intrinsic motivational factors, it does not have to mean that motivation cannot come from within. Our findings have to be looked at in the light of that it is institutionalised learning we have looked at which means that the individual’s options are limited and therefore also the possibilities for choosing activities that gives inner satisfaction. This is also the reason why most of the motivational factors that we have found are extrinsic. Also, what we have not discussed here is the difference of the importance between the various extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors since this does not belong within the scope of our thesis.

Conclusion of the discussion

As English teachers to be, we have found it very useful to look into what it is that motivates the pupils to learn English in the classroom. As we have mentioned earlier, we believe that what motivates you are factors which can be both external as well as internal which we have chosen to call extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors. We believe that even if the teacher’s influence on the pupils’ motivation is limited according to our findings, we still believe that it is very important for teachers to be aware of all the different motivational factors in order to be able to create as motivating an educational ambience as possible. Of course there are more factors, such as attitudes, aptitude, learning style, learner preferences and personality that affect motivation than what we have found through our interviews. However, these categories would be difficult to apply to extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors, since they are too extensive.

In conclusion, to refer back to our cobweb metaphor we have tried to find as many of the motivational factors as possible, i.e. the threads, and systematise them by extrinsic and intrinsic. As we can see, there is not one answer to what motivates a pupil to learn English as a second language in a classroom situation. Different theories have different explanations to what it is that motivates the pupils to learn English in the classroom. Above all, however, we believe that the pupils are not motivated solely by one factor but that the motivational factors are rather intertwined with each other, although some might be more important than others.

What is interesting to notice about our findings is that successful pupils’ motivation does not seem to be affected by relevant others. We had expected that the pupils would be more influenced by parents and peers, but according to themselves this is not the case. The only one that they state affect their motivation is the teacher, who does so by making the lessons more fun and interesting and giving positive feedback. However, also negative results tend to influence the pupils’ motivation positively. The most interesting finding that we discovered is that there seems to be a strong connection between successful pupils and having goals that go beyond achieving high grades. So even if an educational ambience is the reason that pupils tend to be more extrinsically motivated, it is still not necessarily the grades that is the strongest extrinsic motivational

factor for successful pupils. Instead what seems to drive these pupils the most when it comes to wanting to learn English is their goals about what it is they want to do in the future. This implies that if we as teachers can get our pupils to look beyond the grades and also get them to see the need that they have for knowing English, we can get our pupils to be more successful.