This paper investigates L2 motivation and demotivation of college English majors in a Korean junior college. The participants’ L2 (de)motivation was explored by the oughtto L2 self, an element of the L2 motivational self system. Data were collected from two rounds of interviews with 59 and 31 students in all four years and analyzed qualitatively. The sources of the ought-to L2 self varied; however, it was a matter of how the participants recognized others’ expectations and pressure (i.e., manageable or beyond control). It was also relevant to how they comprehended and internalized these external influences for their L2 learning and (de)motivation. The findings indicate that the oughtto L2 self could be a contributing factor in sustaining L2 motivation and exerting effort. Finally, this paper calls for more needs to ensure and promote personalized and meaningful L2 learning for college English major students.

The purpose of this study was to investigate patterns of English learning motivation that changed in high school students from their elementary to junior high and senior high schools from a retrospective perspective. It further examined factors affecting motivation, demotivation, and remotivation. Participants charted progressions and regressions of their English learning motivation. They then took part in semi-structured interviews. Results of the study revealed that the students had the highest motivation in their elementary school years. They showed gradual declines as learning time progressed, showing the lowest motivation in their high school years. Motivation factors included teaching methods, curiosity and interest in English classes, and incentives and praise for learning achievements, while textbooks, curriculum, learning failure experiences, and pressure on grades were demotivating factors. Improvements in test scores and English study skills, experiences of success in English learning, and awareness of the importance of learning English remotivated these students. Identified motivation, demotivation, and remotivation factors differed depending on students’ English proficiency.

This paper presents a study on motivating and demotivating factors in learning Korean. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the learning motivation and demotivation of university students in Singapore taking Korean as unrestricted elective, and investigate what differences exist in the motivating and demotivating factors based on their Korean levels. Through the analysis of surveys on university students in Singapore, it was found that their major motivating factors were the travel orientation and the cultural interest. These motivating factors did not show any difference depending on the Korean levels. The major demotivating factors of Korean learners were the evaluation factor and the language factor. By interpreting open-ended responses, the competition factor was found as a demotivating factor. In addition, the competition factor and the language factor showed differences between the first level and the second level and above. This study suggests to motivate Korean learners by applying the major motivating factors to a class and weakening the major demotivating factors.

The study discussed advanced-level Korean high school EFL learners’ demotivation and remotivation strategies in English learning. Demotivation refers to specific external forces that reduce or harm motivation; remotivation is the process of recovering the reduced motivation. Although both are common in L2 learning, only a few studies address this issue. Using the survey data of 130 participants, the study identified eight demotivating factors through factor analysis. The first factor, negative attitude toward English, indicates that even high school students felt demotivated because of the sheer difficulty of studying English. Descriptive statistics revealed that a negative attitude toward the English-speaking community was not a strong demotivator, which indicated that students possessed Machiavellian motivation. Correlation and regression analysis suggested that no demotivator had a significant negative relationship with English scores; rather, the ways students perceived the demotivators were more important. Eight remotivation strategies were identified; among those, “Keep thinking about the social importance of English” was the most often mentioned one. These results suggested the need for further qualitative, systemic research on remotivators and for training programs for practicing remotivation strategies.

The present study has investigated teaching motivation and demotivation factors on itinerant English teachers for pre-school children. A total of 119 itinerant English teachers were asked to answer a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale, which had 32 items for teaching motivation and 14 items for demotivation. They also responded to 8 items asking about personal background information, which were used to examine the direct influence on teachers’ (de)motivation. Factor analyses were conducted to explore (de)motivation factors. As a result, five factors emerged regarding teaching motivation: altruistic motivation, intrinsic motivation, interpersonal motivation, monetary reward, and self-improvement motivation. Four teaching demotivation factors were also identified through factor analysis: burnout, lack of self-confidence, insufficient external support, and lack of autonomy. The result of t-test and one-way ANOVA indicated that teachers’ age, marital status, and teaching experiences have influenced teaching motivation, whereas their undergraduate major and age contributed to the level of teaching demotivation. This study implies that it is necessary to provide them with systematic pre- and in-service teacher training programs in order to develop the comprehensive knowledge of early childhood education as well as to improve their overall English proficiency.

Recent L2 motivation research has paid attention to the dynamic nature of motivation and to the process of motivational changes in L2 learning. While studies have mostly focused on the factors positively influencing L2 motivation, relatively little research has been conducted on the factors that influence learner demotivation. In this light, the study examined the factors affecting Korean college students’ demotivation and their reaction to demotivation by drawing on the notions of ideal L2 self and ought-to L2 self in Dörnyei (2005, 2009). Based on interviews with twenty-nine Korean college students, three factors were identified as demotivating factors: lack of meaningful purpose, lack of improvement and success experiences, and lack of self-determination. It was noted that the conflict between the students’ desire to use English for communication and the immediate need to gain good scores on standardized tests was the main source of learner demotivation. However, the students with a strong ideal L2 self were more successful in setting personalized goals and participating in personally meaningful activities when demotivating factors were present. The findings indicate the importance of learners’ ability to visualize their ideal L2 self in overcoming demotivation and remotivating themselves.

This theoretical position paper highlights how second language (L2) learning demotivation or decrease in motivation can be reconceptualized within the framework of Vygotskian Activity Theory (AT). Previous demotivation studies primarily focused on determining the demotivating factors. There has not been sufficient academic attention to the dynamic interaction between L2 learners and their potential factors for demotivation. In this paper, we attempted to apply AT in order to explain this intricate demotivation process, particularly focusing on L2learners’ subjective perceptions of their learning environment. From the perspective of AT, L2 learners’ learning-related activities are seen as activities composed of subject, object, mediational tool, community, rule, and division of labor. Describing a learner’s L2 learning experience in Lantolf and Genung’s (2002) study, we argue that the tensions emerging between the elements in the activity system result in demotivation. Future directions and the issue of commensurability of AT with other theories are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the demotivating factors of students attending a university located in a local area in Korea. The interviews with 17 students who are in three different proficiency groups reveal 8 demotivating factors: 'learning difficulty', 'exam-oriented class', 'low test scores', 'low confidence', 'memorization', 'learning material', 'teacher', and 'grammar translation method'. The main demotivating factor is 'learning difficulty'. Half of the students who mentioned this state that they experienced the learning difficulty when they advanced to middle school from elementary school. The majority of other demotivating factors are closely related to the Korean education system under which both teachers and students do not have much autonomy. The 'teacher' factor which was identified as the main demotivating factor in other studies conducted in western countries is not the main demotivator in this paper. In the distribution of demotivating factors, there do not exist any big differences among the different proficiency groups but it is shown that the low proficiency students experienced demotivation earlier than the higher proficiency students.