Sobre los aspectos metodológicos

The Ideal L2 Self relates to the L2-specific aspect of an individual’s ideal self. For example, if the image of the desired future self is one who speaks an L2, then the Ideal L2 Self would be an effective motivator to learn the L2. This is a result of a person’s desire to reduce the discrepancy between the actual here-and-now self and the ideal self. This concept relates to the integrative and internalised instrumental motives. The desire to achieve a goal combined with a positive attitude toward attaining that goal and effort is what constitutes motivation (Gardner, 1985, 11), and it is also a crucial component of

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identity. West (1992) argues that identity is essentially about desire, the desire for recognition, association, and protection. The general idea of desire and West’s (1992) conception of identity as desire concur with the theoretical underpinnings of the present research. Firstly, desire relates strongly to both motivation and identity concerning the Future Selves theory (Markus and Nurius, 1986) in which people are understood to be driven by the desire to take on attractive identities and to avoid offensive ones. Secondly, West’s (1992) notion of identity suggests that identity construction occurs as a result of people’s need for recognition, association and protection, which necessitates that the present research includes an analysis of the motives that drive identity construction and in so doing, possibly explain why some language learners in the context of the present study are motivated to learn English when they choose to assume the Ideal L2 Self and others fail to do so. It is therefore that the theory of Motivated Identity Construction (Vignoles, 2006) has been included in the present study.

For the Ideal L2 Self and the Ought-to L2 Self to be effective self-guides, they have to comply with certain preconditions. The possible future self should be represented by a vivid vision of the person in the future, the more elaborate and vivid the imagined future self is the more likely it is to induce motivation. Thus the motivational capacity of some possible selves may be diminished by their lack of detail and vividness. Recent studies (Al-Shehri, 2009; Dörnyei and Chan, 2013; Dörnyei and Muir, 2013; Dörnyei and

Kubanyiova, 2014) focusing on the relationship between future L2 self-images, sensory styles, and imagery capacity, emphasise that a detailed vision of a future desired end state has the same motivational potential as an event taking place in reality. This is due to the brain’s inability to distinguish between reality and detailed visions involving a broad range

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of sensory information as both these involve the same neural structures. Numerous

studies (Al-Shehri, 2009; Dörnyei and Muir, 2013; Dörnyei and Chan, 2013; and Yang and Kim, 2011) have indicated the motivational power of visual imagery in the language

learning domain. In the case of the students polled for the current study, the student questionnaire simply attempts to establish the students’ views about their ability to construct an Ideal L2 Self. The student interview, however, has the potential to measure the level of vividness with which these students can imagine themselves as proficient English users in an ideal future state.

The imagined possible future self should be a plausible one, an identity that is achievable and not just a fantasy. There should be harmony between the ideal and ought- to selves (Dörnyei, 2006). More importantly for this study, realising a possible future identity depends on the presence of procedural strategies. Visions of the self in an ideal future state, no matter how elaborate they may be, will most probably not lead to

motivation unless they are associated with feasible action plans which are prompted by these images. Studies done by Pizzolato (2006, 60) confirm this idea. Miller and Brickman (2004, 14) also maintain that people should have proximal goals which are connected to achieving the more distant goals represented by these possible selves. They likewise contend that the absence of acceptable strategies may be the result of a lack of

knowledge and inadequate skills. Therefore, for an individual to display sustained effort towards achieving a future end state, desired possible selves should be connected to strategies to attain them and conversely, feared possible selves should be linked to strategies to avoid them (Oyserman, Bybee and Terry, 2006).

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Further to the plausibility of the imagined possible future self, there should be a connection between future selves and the present actual self which can be affected by the perceived proximity of a future self to the present. The results of a number of studies have shown that possible selves are likely to be effective motivators when future selves feel linked to the present self. Also, people are stimulated to act on distant selves when they sense that those are connected to more proximal ones, the future feels near, and it is easy to imagine the self in context. In studies conducted by Peetz et al. (2009), it was found that students were able to supply researchers with specific strategies for achieving a future self when they perceived the future as near. When the future felt more distant, students

provided ideas focused on outcomes rather than strategies. Consequently, those who perceived the future as near felt more motivated by the specific strategies with which they came up. In the same vein, Destin and Oyserman (2009 and 2010) came to similar

conclusions when they linked a distant future self related to adult economic success with the more proximal one of educational attainment. In this study, some students were given information emphasising that their future success was reliant on education while others were provided with information suggesting that their future success does not depend on educational achievement. Those in the education-dependent group were more inclined to perform tasks related to achieving educational goals than there education-independent counterparts (Oyserman and James, 2011).