Motivation and Second Foreign Language Proficiency: The Mediating Role of Foreign Language Enjoyment

Abstract

Inadequate research attention has been paid to the learning of a third language. For this reason, this study explores senior English major students' learning of additional foreign languages in seven universities in Shaanxi Province, China. The study examines the relationship between the participants' motivation and language proficiency through a questionnaire, and the collected data are analyzed using hierarchical linear regression analysis. The results identify that the participants' instrumental and integrative motivations positively influence their second foreign language proficiency. Further analysis reveals that the connection between the participants' motivation and language proficiency is mediated by foreign language enjoyment. These findings form the basis of our suggestions for the sustainable learning and teaching of foreign languages in universities.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1302 2 of 13 the field of positive psychology have pointed out the importance of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) in language acquisition [22][23][24], more work is needed to elaborate the role of FLE in foreign language learning. Considering FLE's connection with mental activity, we assume in this paper that it mediates the relationship between motivation and foreign language proficiency, and we try to examine this mediating effect in the TLA context. Therefore, the present study uses survey data from seven universities in Shaanxi Province, China, to explore the process of second foreign language acquisition, examining and explicating the relationship between motivation and language proficiency as well as the mediating role of FLE on the focal relationship. Theoretically, this paper enriches our understanding of how motivation influences second foreign language proficiency, facilitates further interest in TLA in terms of individual differences, and highlights the importance of positive psychology in learning a second foreign language. Practically, it suggests important implications for the sustainability of second foreign language teaching and learning.

How different are the relations between enjoyment, anxiety, attitudes/motivation and course marks in pupils’ Italian and English as foreign languages?

“…Using a comparable cross-sectional design and focusing on students' second FL, Zhang et al (2020) found that their 335 Chinese university students' instrumental and integrative motivation positively influenced their second FL self-rated proficiency (mostly Japanese, French and German). Further analysis revealed that the relationship between motivation and self-rated FL proficiency was mediated by FLE.…”

EFL Students' Preferences for Written Corrective Feedback: Do Error Types, Language Proficiency, and Foreign Language Enjoyment Matter?

“…High FLE learners usually keep good relationships with teachers and may try to be considerate to decrease teachers' workload by engaging in self-correction. Moreover, the finding that error code was rated higher by high FLE learners than low FLE learners at the lower proficiency level could be explained by the mediating effects of FLE on learner-related variables such as proficiency (Zhang et al, 2020). In other words, just like upper intermediate learners, learners with lower level of proficiency also preferred less explicit WCF types when they scored high on FLE scales.…”

“…FLE has also been demonstrated to be a strong predictor of learners' willingness to communicate , learners' performances on lexical decision tasks (Dewaele and Alfawzan, 2018) and L2 achievement (Jin and Zhang, 2018). Moreover, FLE is found to have a mediating role in the relationships between learners' motivation and language proficiency (Zhang et al, 2020). Taken together, FLE is most likely to be triggered by teacher-related factors, boosts learners' capacity in FL, affects the process of the target language, and mediates other affective factors such as motivation as well as learners' proficiency level.…”

Aliya madrasah students’ motivation for learning English in Bangladesh

“…While these studies identify the influence of either motivation, Wallace, and Leong (2020) found that EFL Chinese students demonstrate high instrumental as well as integrative motivation for learning English. Similarly, Zhang, Dai and Wang (2020) also found that proficiency in English of the English major university students in China is constrained by their integrative and instrumental motivations. Above all, the findings of these studies suggest that whatever its type or nature, motivation is found to have a crucial role in learning English as an L2.…”