Senior students’ motivation to learn English at Nguyen Viet Dung high school, Can Tho city

Abstract

The paper investigates high school seniors’ motivation to learn English so that the students can have an opportunity to reconsider what has motivated them to keep learning English and express their ideas on what has demotivated them during the learning process. The participants in the study are 84 seniors from class 12A7 and class 12A9 at Nguyen Viet Dung high school. A questionnaire, with 43 question items, was used as the main research instrument. A separate interview was also employed with 3 selected respondents to gain deeper understanding on students’ language learning motivation. The collected data was meticulously analyzed to answer two questions: (1) Are students greater motivated to learn English by instrumental motivation or by integrative motivation? (2) What are the demotivating factors which impact students' English learning process? The results indicate that all the students have high motivation toward learning English and their instrumental motivation was found to be slightly higher than their integrative one. The respondents’ instrumental motivation is related to their future career prospects. The demotivating factors to learn English are proved to be most relevant to English teachers and grammar. The study also provides some pedagogical implications and further recommendations.