Volume 14 Issue 2, November 2021
L2 Motivation Patterns in EFL Japan of Different Groups of Learners
Hajime Tsuzuki, Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages, Japan
Abstract:
It is natural to assume that each language learner demonstrates his or her unique improvement curves. On the other hand, a clear trend was observed where four different demographic groups of learners, while presenting four respective and distinct trends of learning speed, all showed similar and overlapping patterns of improvement within his or her own group. The attempt of this research is to try to explain this phenomenon. The explanations will be made based solely on various motivational theories derived from the literature, without referring to other possible contributors such as individual aptitude factors. Through the process, the paper aims to first present what types of motivations exist in each, followed by ensuring logical connections between those existing motivations of each demographic group and their outcome pattern, particularly after more than 5 years of learning. As a consequence, it will show that while two of the four groups show only a limited amount of improvement, and a seemingly prospective group of business professionals fail to show any measurable progress, a group of younger learners consistently succeeds in their pursuit of both academic success and language mastery.