A TTITUDE AND MOTIVATION

important to the Hungarian population, and were less likely to claim that they wanted to speak German well.

Some language teachers reported low levels of motivation of disadvantaged and special needs children. They confessed they had to put in much energy into motivating them:

Somehow you have to keep their motivation up much more, which is sometimes very low. I’d like to get to them so much, sometimes I feel that they won’t learn for anything but for my sake. If they don’t love me there and then, they won’t do it. They become passive and do nothing.

[S1TE2]

The following comment illustrates that the teacher’s role in motivation is seen as indispensable:

You have to win the children, I guess. To nicely get them to do what they have to and let the others do it, too, to make a bit of progress. [S6TG1]

As regards motivating teaching practices, the importance of giving regular, meaningful and constructive feedback to children was underlined:

At the end of each class I evaluate them so that they know how they worked, very well or a bit lazy, and we also point out the direction to follow. [S6TE1]

The social-interactive context is essential for disadvantaged language learners because

“by providing positive interpersonal support and appropriately structured feedback, teachers can prompt and scaffold learners’ attempts to reflect constructively on their learning experience and to redirect their thinking in more positive ways” (Ushioda, 2008, p. 28).

A friendly relationship between the teacher and the children as well as inspiring

You can be successful if you can motivate these children with ideas etc.

so they consult the textbook and learn with pleasure, they are put their confidence in you, attend your classes happily, keep contact with you.

[S6TE1]

These findings are in line with the results of the longitudinal study by Nikolov (1999) who confirmed that positive attitudes towards that teacher and intrinsically motivating activities played the most significant role in influencing Hungarian children’s foreign language motivation in primary schools. Instrumental motives are reported to emerge later around the age of 12, the 11-14-year olds stated more utilitarian reasons. As learners become older through adolescence, they get more aware of their particular needs.

Several comments referred to teachers’ attempts to promote children’s instrumental motivation. These comments highlighted the importance of knowing a foreign language in everyday life:

I sometimes tell them stories to motivate them about how you can meet an English speaking person in the street and how important it is to understand what he says. [S6TE1]

Teachers also emphasized the advantages of language exams in secondary and higher education or improving job prospects. They also provided examples of successful learners:

I always stress if somebody in the family, or in the community, is successful. So being disadvantaged prevents them from being as motivated as someone with better abilities. [S5TG1]

The importance of raising learners’ awareness of successful learners was mentioned by the head teacher in School S6 who reported that they regularly invited former students

There are some Romas, who, after finishing primary school, took their final exams at a secondary school, and graduated from the Police Academy or Teacher Training College. We invite them so that children can see that there are graduates among them, and we try to set them as examples e.g. in class-administration classes, and to make them believe that they can do it as well. [S5HT]

Another head teacher also stressed that motivation was influenced substantially by the peer group. McKay (2006) states that the growing influence of peer groups on a child’s motivations and interests between the age of 5 and 12 tends to have a significant effect on children’s participation. One head teacher stressed the negative effect of ability grouping on motivation:

There isn’t any real driving force in the classes. Children with good abilities are not really examples to follow for the others. The others draw them back. [S1HT]

The experience of another head teacher indicates that improving constructive and supportive community and peer-related interpersonal relations in the class has important effects on children’s motivation:

A positive community could best influence these children’s individual development, even their motivation. [S4HT]

Focus group interviews with children did not report on low levels of motivation throughout, especially younger learners (Grades 4-5) seemed to be extremely motivated and showed positive attitudes towards language learning. In the interviews, younger children were generally very enthusiastic about their foreign language learning experiences, they would also like to have extra lessons or private lessons in foreign languages. The majority of children would also invest more time and energy to learning

This high level of motivation was mainly associative (Hunt, Barnes, Powell, Lindsay and Muijs, 2005), it was connected to pleasant activities in class as we can see in the following comments made by children in School S1:

We love English classes because we like to play. [S1CH3] And I also like to cartoons in our book! [S1CH5]

The teacher was also referred to as the main reason for liking or disliking foreign language education:

I love the English classes because we have a very good teacher of English. [S1CH2]. Yes, she is nice and takes care of us. [S1CH3]

Even a German class can motivate children if the teaching is good and the activities are found interesting by the students:

I love German because the classes are good. [S4CH5]

In School S5 we can see quite clearly that it is not the German language itself that causes amotivation, but the quality of education:

What I don’t like in German classes is the teacher. I don’t even want to do anything. [S5CH1] It is easy to learn German. Only the teacher is not easy. [S5CH4]

Especially older students expressed their frustration, seeing language education as uninteresting, lacking in value and relevance.

Several references to integrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) were found in the children’s responses, indicating a sincere and personal interest in the English language:

I love languages, I would also learn English if it wasn’t be obligatory.

[S4CH2]

I know that I have to learn the basics of English in the primary school, it inspires me. [S3CH5]

A number of comments can be interpreted as signs of instrumental orientation (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) emphasizing the practical advantage and value of language learning:

I love English, I don’t think it is difficult, and it will be easier for me to find a good job. [S2CH3]

Languages are very important everywhere. Later, I would like to teach English. [S2CH7]

I would like to continue my studies and there, I will badly need languages. [S3TCH1]

I would like to study information technology in secondary school, it motivates me to learn English. [S4CH2]

It is worth learning German, because if we travel to Austria or Germany, or work abroad, we could communicate, make ourselves understood.

[S5CH2]

These comments were rather characteristic of older language learners (Grades 7-8), who may have clearer aims with language learning, which are already incorporated in their Ideal L2 self (Dörnyei, 2005). Two children reported that their parents encouraged them to learn a foreign language because of better future opportunities. Almost every student was aware of having better job prospects when speaking a foreign language.

As far as the cross-cultural contact of children with English or German is concerned, it can be concluded that they had rare indirect experience of intercultural contact. Most of them mentioned the Internet, computer games, English songs, and English films with Hungarian subtitles. In spite of the fact that several families had foreign language TV channels, children hardly ever watched them. Three children reported having family members living abroad and communicating in German with

them. Two schools (S5 and S4) had contact with a Polish and one school (S1) with a German primary school organizing regular school trips. None of the children traveled to these countries, and there was only one person among the children who met a foreign student (Polish) during their visit. The reason for not participating in these projects indicated deliberate selection processes (“the better students were selected” [S5CH5] or

“children who could speak German very well could travel” [S4CH6]) which excluded disadvantaged children from these programs. On the whole, it seems that intercultural contact situations are not readily available for influencing disadvantaged children’s motivation.

Research on motivation (Nikolov, 1999; Józsa and Fazekasné, 2007) point to a decrease in motivation at age 11-12, which was reinforced by the teachers’ interviews emphasizing that this decrease in motivation may be even more significant in groups of disadvantaged children. The real challenge of teaching foreign languages to disadvantaged children lies in finding ways of maintaining the initially high motivation through the long and demanding process of learning a language. Sustaining motivation for a longer period of time may not be successful, the reasons may lie in children’s disappointment in education (Caro, MacDonald and Willms, 2009), permanent failure (Silliman, Butler and Wallach, 2003), the lack of parental encouragement and parenting practices (Lareau, 2003)), different values of Roma families (Havas, Kemény and Liskó, 2002), the role of milieu and socio-cultural environment (Gardner, Masgoret and Tremlay, 1999) or the influence of peers (Kormos and Csizér, 2005). It must be stressed that “motivation is not located solely within the individual but is socially distributed, created within cultural systems of activities involving the mediation of others”

(Ushioda, 2008, p. 26).

In conclusion, factors which were found to influence disadvantaged children’s attitude to foreign language learning and motivation are represented in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Overview of Category 4: Factors influencing disadvantaged children’s attitude to foreign language learning and motivation

Some of these issues also emerged in the other major categories, which indicates the complex nature of influences. The motivating role of formative assessment and meaningful feedback was discussed in the category of assessment. Motivating classroom activities and ability grouping reflect the methodological considerations of language teachers. The importance of student-teacher relationship and peer-group influence are important factors influencing the role of group environment which is the focus of the next section.