The purpose of this study is to investigate paths of the effects of L2 motivational self system and self-efficacy on Korean EFL learners’ English ability. For this purpose, questionnaires were conducted and 580 Korean elementary school students in Gyeonggido participated in this survey. Correlation and path analysis were used to analyze the data. The major results of the study are as follows: (1) Self-efficacy is correlated with all constructs of motivation. It has the highest correlation with ideal L2 self and the lowest correlation with ought-to L2 self; (2) self-efficacy has a direct effect on ideal L2 self and ought-to L2 self whereas it has direct and indirect effects on elementary students’ English proficiency; and (3) ought-to L2 self has a positive direct effect and L2 learning experience has a negative direct effect on elementary students’ English proficiency. However, ideal L2 self has no effect on elementary students’ English proficiency. At the end of the paper, pedagogical implications and suggestions are discussed.

The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) to find context-specific motivational factors in Korean college contexts within the framework of Gardner’s integrativeness and Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System; (2) to examine how those motivational factors explain motivated behavior. For this purpose, motivation data by 787 students was analyzed. The factor analysis revealed eight factors in Korean context: promotional instrumentality, bad learning experience, ought-to L2 self, integrativeness, elusive ideal L2 self, ethnocentrism, intercultural avoidance, and international posture. The regression analysis showed that four motivational factors, bad learning experience, ought-to L2 self, elusive ideal L2 self, and promotional instrumentality, significantly explained the participants’ motivated behavior. The findings indicate that there existed context-specific motivational factors which could better explain success of L2 in Korean EFL college contexts. The theoretical and pedagogical implications were provided at the conclusion.

The purpose of this study was to study how L2 motivations in both Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System and Gardner’s (1985) socio-educational model were related to intrinsic and extrinsic subscales in the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) in Korean college contexts. This study investigated the relationships among the motivational variables by the use of the correlation method and the effects of L2 motivations on motivated behavior through multiple regression analysis. The findings showed Gardner’s (1985) integrativeness and ideal L2 self were strongly correlated with the more self-determined types of motivations, while L2 learning experience and ought-to L2 self were associated with the less self-determined ones in the self-determination theory. In addition, Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System and the extrinsic motivation subscales, identified regulation and external regulation, explained Korean college students’ motivated behavior better than Gardner’s (1985) integrativeness. The theoretic discussions are made at the conclusion.

The recent theory in L2 motivation has proposed viewing motivation as possible selves such as ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experiences to complement the limitation of traditional socio-educational model. The purpose of the study was to test the traditional integrativeness and L2 motivational self system in Korean EFL college contexts and how those motivations have developed over time through a cross-sectional study. A total of five hundred fifty five college students taking English as elective in Korea completed the motivation questionnaires. The results showed that both traditional integrative motivations and L2 motivational self system have increased positively over time at college. The post-hoc test revealed that the senior students developed significantly higher motivations than the freshmen in integrative orientation, attitudes towards learning English, and criterion measures. L2 motivational self system such as ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experiences better predicted motivated behaviors than integrative motivations even though both had significant correlations. Theoretic discussions were made for L2 motivations.

Due to the increase in international trade, mass transportation, and information technology, the role of English as a global language has changed, and conventional EFL/ESL motivation needs paradigmatic reconstruction. This study compares Dörnyei’s (2009) recent proposal of a second language (L2) motivat-ional self-system with Gardner’s (1985) socio-educational model by investigating 2,832 Korean students’ English learning motivation from Grades 3 through 12 in 14 different schools. The cross-grade survey results indicated that Korean EFL learners’ motivational intensity showed a curvilinear pattern, which means their motivation consistently decreased until Grade 9 but increased from Grades 10 to 12. A series of regression analyses showed that Dörnyei’s L2 motivational self-system was a better predictor than Gardner’s socio-educational model in terms of the explanatory power for students’ English proficiency; students’ ideal L2 and ought-to L2 selves explained better than integrativeness and two types of instrumentality (i.e., promotion- and prevention-based). This confirms the findings of recent literature conducted in different nations. Also, the study provides empirical evidence that the ought-to L2 self, which is an external, social form of L2 motivation, functions only at the cognitive level, whereas the ideal L2 self, a more internalized form, taps into both the cognitive and affective levels.

This paper explores the perceptual learning style, ideal L2 self, and motivated L2 behavior of Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Swedish high school students. Guided by Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009a) L2 motivational self-system, this quantitative study extends Al-Shehri’s (2009) and Tae-Young Kim's (2009a) research byreinterpreting the role of perceptual leaming styles in the creation of learners' ideal L2 self and the maintenance of their motivated L2 behavior. The statistical analysis found that learners' perceptual learning styles (i.e., visual, auditory, and kinesthetic styles) were significantly correlated with their ideal L2 self and motivated L2 behavior. However, the results of the regression analysis indicate that none of three perceptual learning styles were meaningful predictors of motivated L2 behavior. Instead, only ideal L2 self were found to be meaningful predictors of their motivated L2 behavior. The ANOVA results indicate that although the Chinese students were more likely to show motivated L2 behavior than the other students, they showed a significantly lower level of the ideal L2 self than the Swedish students. By focusing on the relationship between learners’ perceptual learning styles and motivated L2 behavior based on the L2 motivational self-system, this study provides evidence that the creation of ideal L2 selves plays a pivotal role in sustaining motivated L2 behavior .