Language Learning Motivation: The Palestinian Context. Attitudes, Motivation, and Orientations

Given that motivation is held to be a major affective variable influencing SLA, the present study examines L2 motivation among Palestinian students from the age of 12 to 18 years old. Considering the present situation in Palestine, the motives that drive learners to study a foreign language will certainly be affected by the context (culture and values) in which the learning takes place. The present study involves the investigation of motivation towards learning English as a foreign language, in four different districts in the West Bank. The first research question in this thesis is an inquiry into language learning motivation and its underlying components among Palestinian learners of English in the context of Palestine. In the second research question, the investigation also looked into how these underlying constructs relate to each other and to achievement. The third research question was an inquiry into how six 'individual and context variables' impacted the motivational constructs identified. Data collection combined a structured questionnaire measuring learner attitudes towards English as well as L2 orientations and a set of semi-structured questions, which provided qualitative data. In this study the questionnaire used was adapted from Cid, Granena and Tragant (2002), an instrument developed in the context of Catalonia with further modification based on an earlier pilot study (Musleh, 2006) conducted in Palestine. First, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was done in order to see how items cluster together. Results revealed four constructs underlying motivation in learning English among Palestinian school children, two attitudinal factos (Motivation and Enjoyment and Awareness for Need) and two reasons for learning the English language (Instrumentality and Interaction with L2 people/culture). Then, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run in order to confirm the constructs identified using EFA and lead to the development of a full structural model based on relationships in models specified by Tragant, Victori, and Thompson (2009) and Csizer and Dornyei (2005). Finally, the specified model revealed of the SEM analysis (structural equation modeling) a good fit with strong positive relations between Instrumentality Interaction with L2 people/culture, InstrumentalityMotivation and Enjoyment, Motivation and Achievement, Awareness for Need Achievement, and Awareness for Need Instrumentality. After the SEM analysis, a multivariate and univariate analysis of variance (MANOVA and ANOVA) were used to show the impact of variables such as student 'grade level', and 'academic level of the mother and father', 'district', 'type of school', and 'gender' on the motivational constructs proposed. Results revealed four significant differences: between 'grade level x 'gender and the father's x the mother's academic levels with Interaction with L2 people culturee, between 'district and Motivation and enjoyment, and 'type of school x 'father's academic level' and Instrumentality. This conforms to research findings in the field of language learning motivation which has shown that individual and demographic differences have an impact on attitudes towards learning an L2. The findings are further reinforced by qualitative data, thus providing a richer representation of motivation for learning English and its components in the Palestinian context. In comparing this study to the study carried out by Tragant (2006) and Tragant, Victori, and Thompson (2009) results demonstrate that motivation and attitudes in learning the English language differs among students from Palestine and from Catalonia, due to the different roles the language plays in each context. Thus, confirming the proposition that context and culture greatly impact language learning attitudes and reasons for learning the English language.KEYWORDS: Applied Linguistics, Motivation, Foreign language learning