English Language Students and their Motivation to Learn the Language

Abstract

The current study examined attitudes and motivation of second language learners in High Schools. It aimed to identify the classroom problems that English teachers face in classes related to motivation and features that affect student’s motivation during the learning process. The theme of this study was “English language students and their motivation to learn the language.” The study was conducted in five classrooms from eight to third year of senior high school in a public institution located in Zamora-Chinchipe Province of Ecuador. A survey was applied to one hundred students whose ages ranged from twelve to seventeen years and five teachers were observed while they were teaching to get the needed data to determine students’ motivation problems inside classroom; Quantitative and Qualitative methods were applied. The gathered information was analyzed, classified, and interpreted to obtain accurate and relevant results about the internal and external factors that motivate students to learn and improve their language learning process. The analysis of the results showed that most of the students were extrinsically motivated rather than intrinsically motivated to study English.