Parental encouragement

Gardner (1985) attributed a huge role to parents in affecting learners’ language motivation. He distinguished between passive and active role of parents on learners’ attitude. Parents are in an active role if they have discussions with their kids regarding language learning, while the passive

role considers parents’ attitudes to the L2 community. Young (1994) concurred with the active role by claiming that “supportive, encouraging parents who value FLL [Foreign Language Learning] and communicate this to their children may initiate the motivational process by indicating a route leading to the attainment of esteem via FLL” (p. 48). Busse and Williams (2010) agreed that the direct or indirect support of parents influenced the language choice of the learners.

Bartram (2006) also suggested a strong link between parental support on learners’

attitudes. He carried out an interview study with 411 15/16 year old language learners from Germany, England and the Netherlands and tried to investigate parental influence on these learners’ attitudes towards French, German and English. He found that positively perceived parental influence was very often connected with utilitarian benefits of language knowledge.

Many Dutch learners voiced language usefulness whose parents derived business and travel benefits from the knowledge of languages. Besides, his data also suggested a link between the language knowledge of parents and their kids’ language learning attitudes and another between parents’ behaviour/experience and learners’ attitudes.

Perceptions of parental support and parents’ attitudes towards the language and the target language speaking community were the two most influential factors predicting motivation of 692 learners of Arabic in a study conducted by Donitsa-Schmidt, et al. (2004). Not only learners but parents also took part in this study. Their attitude towards the Arabic language and Arabic people was positive in the experimental and in the control group, too. This positive attitude of parents might have affected the attitude of their kids in a direct or in an indirect way.

Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems and Doan Holbein (2005) listed a number of studies having the relationship between parental involvement and student achievement in focus. Among them they highlighted the role of Marchant, Pauls, and Rothlisberg’s (2001) study that confirmed the important role parents, teachers, and peers have on students’ school achievement. Besides, Maehr

and Midgley (1991) acknowledged that parents play an important role in the early grades, but they also claimed that when learners go on with studying, the role of the teacher, peers, and the classroom environment gradually increases. In other words, there is a shift from parents to teachers, peers and to the classroom atmosphere when learners move to upper classes in terms of significant others whose opinion and attitude counts.

These authority figures that are respected or feared by the learners influence the motivation of learners. This influence can also form parts of learners’ ideal or ought-to self (Boyatzis & Akrivou, 2006). As it was already noted, research studies refer to an existing strong relationship between the ought-to self and parental support (Csizér & Kormos, 2009; Dörnyei, et al., 2006). Milieu was also one of the three important factors identified by Dörnyei, et al. (2006) to affect learners’ language motivation. Learners’ environment showed strong relationships with the Ideal L2 Self in the case of Hungarian adult and secondary school learners (Kormos &

Csizér, 2008). These findings allow us to conclude that the immediate environment takes a dominant role in shaping learners’ future possible selves (both the ideal and the ought-to self).

Parental support differentially affects motivation depending on parents’ belongingness to ethnic minority or majority groups (Phalet, Andriessen, & Lens, 2004). Phalet, et al. (2004) referred to the findings of Nijsten (1998) and Pels’ (1998) study when claiming that

“comparative studies on Turkish, Moroccan, and native Dutch families report higher academic aspirations among ethnic minority parents than among native parents with a similar social background” (p. 63). Kao and Tienda (1995) connected this finding with their “immigrant optimism hypothesis”. This hypothesis “attributes educational progress in minority youth to parental expectations of upward intergenerational mobility through education” (p. 64). Findings of these two studies suggest that minority parents’ expectations are strongly connected with learners’ academic achievement.

In connection with the ethnic minority status, the importance of parental support on heritage and non-heritage language learners’ motivation has also been researched. Rueda and Chen (2005) in their quantitative research project included 150 Chinese and non-Chinese college students studying Chinese and came up with two different types of instrumental motivation. They suggested that Chinese learners learnt the language to meet their parents’ expectations and to use it for talking to their relatives. But non-Chinese learners learnt it for travelling benefits, to become better job-candidates or just because it is considered to be part of a ‘well-rounded education’. According to the above-discussed description, both aspects can form part of the Ought-to L2 Self dimension.

Not only college students but lecturers were also included in Gorham and Millette’s (1997) questionnaire study discussing teachers’ and students’ perceptions of sources of motivation. Analysis of the obtained results showed that students “attributed more of their motivation to factors they bring with them to a course (and beyond the teacher’s control): their personal credit or grade orientation and their desire to please others, frequently their parents” (p.

257). Thus, perceived parental expectations and an innate desire to meet those can also be considered as parts of the ought-to self.

Parental encouragement as a motivation variable was included in the present study, as well. Similarly to previous findings (e.g.: Donitsa-Schmidt, et al., 2004) it was expected that the support and attitude of parents influence minority learners’ motivation to learn English. Parents attribute great dominance to Ukrainian language knowledge as an integral part of their children’s future ambitions (see e,g,: Orosz, 2007) and that is why a close relationship was hoped between parental support and Ukrainian language learning attitudes. Consequently, it was also hypothesized that parents attribute great importance to Ukrainian knowledge, because they look at the knowledge of the state language as the main determinant of one’s future success.

Therefore, parents were also expected to affect learners’ disposition towards Ukrainian language

studies by emphasizing its role in the learners’ future endeavours. Besides, parents are definitely aware of the instrumental benefits of Ukrainian knowledge, which is another message that they might forward directly or indirectly to their children. Consequently, it was hypothesized that there will be a significant relation between the Ought-to L2 Self, the Ideal L2 Self and parental support in the case of Ukrainian language motivation. Previous research findings confirm such relations in the case of English, as well (e.g. Dörnyei, et al., 2006; Kormos & Csizér, 2008).