This paper investigates Korean EFL students’ learning (de)motivation factors according to the level of students’ English learning motivation. A total of 41 undergraduate students reflected on their past ten years of English learning experiences and submitted autobiographic essays with ‘motigraph,’ marking their annual changes of English learning motivation from 0 to 10. The data were analyzed with Grounded Theory. The findings revealed that the factors that increased or decreased English learning motivation were different according to students’ level of motivation. Students with low-level motivation were influenced by their teacher or parents, while those with high-level motivation were influenced by their past L2 learning experiences perceived positively by themselves. In both groups, the factors of emotional experiences caused by negative L2 learning experiences were the main reasons for demotivation. This paper emphasizes the importance of subjective appraisal in maintaining students’ L2 learning motivation and recovering from the state of demotivation.

The purpose of this research was to examine how Korean college students’ motivation toward English learning has been changed over time as they took technology-utilizing classes. In order to accomplish this, two research questions were proposed; First, how has the students’ motivation changed over the whole school year? Second, how has the students’ motivation changed in terms of their English proficiency levels? Sixty college students were required to take a simulated TOEIC test for their English proficiency levels, and to respond to the ARCS questionnaire developed by Keller (2008a, 2008b) to measure their motivation levels. An independent samples t-test was employed to compare the statistical means from the samples, specifically to find out the relation of students’ motivation and t he e ffect o f t echnology-utilizing c lasses. The r esults o f d ata analysis found out that the longer the treatment period of technology-utilizing instruction, the greater the effect on the learner’s motivation; second, the technology-utilizing instruction has a significant effect on the students’ motivation regardless of their proficiency levels, but it turns out to be more effective in improving the upper group students’ motivation toward learning. Based on these findings, practical implications for the implementing technology-utilizing instruction in the EFL classroom were suggested.

In this research synthesis, a total of 313 studies on English learning motivation published in South Korea from 2000 to 2017 were reviewed. The data were categorized into four criteria: publication year, research method, participant, and research topic. First, the annual trend clearly demonstrated that the number of motivation research showed a steady growth. The dominant research method was quantitative (207 papers) over qualitative (40 papers) and mixed methods (48 papers). University students (157 papers) were major population in English learning motivation research followed by junior high (36 papers), elementary (30 papers), high school students (30 papers), research synthesis (17 papers), and kindergarten students (3 papers). Most research focused on identifying specific subcomponents of English learning motivation in a particular research context. The study suggests that future research needs to focus more on diverse student group such as home-schoolers. Also, the use of research synthesis needs to be encouraged in order to capture the complex nature of English learning motivation.

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 purpose of this study was to explore how motivational factors affect Korean EFL secondary students’ motivated learning behavior using structural equation modeling (SEM). It further examined differences in the internal structure of L2 motivation over time. A total of 489 secondary school students participated in the study. Data were collected at two time points during an academic semester: in the beginning and at the end of the semester. Results of the SEM showed that students’ ideal L2 self was the strongest determinant of their motivated learning behavior at both time points for middle school students, whereas for high school students, ought-to L2 self had the strongest direct and significant impact on their motivated behavior in learning English throughout the semester. It was also found that both middle and high school students’ perceptions about the international posture of English and their parents’ involvement in English learning made indirect effects on their motivated behavior. Pedagogical implications and research suggestions are discussed.

This study examines the relationship between students’ perceptions of learning contexts and motivation to learn English in Korea. Three categories of contexts were operationalized: the transnational context as learners’ international interest including study-abroad desires, the national context as awareness of English learning to prepare for CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) and their classroom experience as the last category. A total of 433 high school students were assessed on measures of L2 learning goals, perception of contexts, self-reported L2 proficiency and motivational intention in the questionnaire, followed by focal participants’ interviews and essays. The statistical analyses show that transitional and classroom categories are statistically correlated with motivational intention. However, the national context is negatively correlated with actual motivation. Multiple regression analyses found that the transnational category is the best predictor for motivational intention, while the national category involves the least significant predictor. The students’ classroom experience is also a meaningful, milder than transnational, predictor. Synthesized results of both quantitative and qualitative data suggest that L2 motivation is more of a sociolinguistic construct that should be construed in relation to multiple social contexts. Findings also suggest Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) notion of the ideal L2 self can better explain the complexity of L2 learning motivation, whereby the integrative-instrumental dichotomy loses its explanatory power.

This article reports on research into self-directed English leaning of Korean university students, focusing on their motivation and metacognition. In general, university students in Korea undertake independent learning to improve their English competence outside the classroom, rather than relying on English courses provided by their universities. Although much of their English learning is self-directed, little has been known about how they carry out their out-of-class English learning. To obtain a better understanding of their self-directed learning, this study, employing a qualitative approach, analyzed reflective journals written by 25 university students during one semester. From the analysis, students’ motivation and metacognition emerged as important themes involved in the students’ self-directed learning. The findings of this study suggest that student motivation continuously ebbs and flows as a result of its complex interrelationship with contextual factors. In addition, it was found that students’ metacognitive knowledge played a crucial role in directing their out-of-class learning as students adopted learning strategies based on their metacognitive knowledge, which was again formed and revised in the course of their learning process. Finally, this article presents suggestions for promoting students’ self-directed English learning.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the motivational factors of Korean middle and high school students in learning English. Additionally, the current study examined whether there were any differences between high school students and middle school students in therms of the motivational subtypes. 172 middle and high school students participated in this study. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to address the research questions. For analysis, data was collected through a questionnaire adopted from the Language Learning Orientation Scale (LLOS) of Noels et al. (2003). The results indicated that the hypothesized model, which includes seven motivational sub-types of self- determination theory, was acceptable to measure Korean secondary students’ motivational factors, showing good fits in most fit indices. The seven dimensions of motivation that the current study explored were amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, intrinsic motivation-accomplishment, intrinsic motivationknowledge, and intrinsic motivation-stimulus. Also, the study found that the difference between the middle school group and the high school group was not significant in terms of their motivational orientation. A meaningful implication of this study was the scale’s possible use by secondary English teachers.

본 연구는 태국에서 이문화인식과 학습동기를 통한 한국어교육 활성화를 위한 일련의 방안을 강구하는 데 목적이 있다. 한국어교육에서 문화적 측면을 고려함은 문화 상호간 무슨 차이가 있으며, 그 차이가 문화간 의사소통에 어떤 문제를 야기시키는지, 또 문화차이가 존재하게 되는 이유 등을 규명하게 한다. 언어문화통합교육은 학습자 중심 교육은 물론 실제 자료의 사용으로 효과적인 과제 중심 교육을 실시할 수 있다. 언어학습에 있어서 이문화인식은 양국 문화의 특징을 상대성과 다양성의 측면에서 충분히 이해되도록 해야 할 것이다. 따라서 한국어학습자와 교사들은 의사소통적 기능뿐만 아니라 문화간 인식에도 많은 관심과 지식을 가져야 한다. 한국어학습자의 학습동기 유발과 이문화인식은 학습자들이 무엇을 배우기를 원하고, 무엇을 필요로 하는지에 우선 전략적 바탕을 두어야 한다, 더불어 한국어교육의 활성화를 위한 양국 정부, 대학교 및 기업의 역할도 함께 고려할 필요가 있을 것이다.