Attribution theory of motivation is significantly relevant to my current study as it offers insights into the reason(s) UWC’s bilingual first year students use translanguaging strategies as coping learning strategies while learning in English. When a question like this is asked to anyone, “What has helped you to overcome or handle this challenge?” This answer will not
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be an exemption to many likely answers, motivation. Motivation to take a particular course in different situations has produce positive and negative outcomes. In my study, motivation is attributably used to comprehend what are those factors that have assisted bilingual students to deal with their difficulty in learning in English.
A motivated student is characterized by his/her goal orientation and task value. Goal orientation refers to the reasons or goals students have for engaging in learning tasks. Similarly, Task value is the emphasis on students’ feelings about the topic or task (McWhaw & Abrami, 2001: p.313). The ability to attribute reasons for an action by students who have put together motivational components helps them to improve on good and bad learning outcomes. For example, Harvey & Martinko (2009: p.148) affirm that attribution helps us recognize the positive steps that led to a successful outcome and the negative steps taken that resulted in a bad consequence. This can become relevant if such an individual wants to continually use or avoid those steps depending on the desired outcome. This is to suggest that an individual learns from an outcome, and lessons gained are used to “shape emotional and behaviorial responses” (Weiner, 1985 cited in Harvey & Martinko, 2009: p.148). Although, Harvey & Martinko’s application of attribution theory of motivation was carried out on employees, the theory can also be applied to educational settings. The popular belief is that students will seek to continually use a positive step that he/she attributes to a successful learning outcome and avoid an approach which he/she considers will lead to failure.
To further understand the underpinning theory of this study, attribution theory of motivation, I shall separate the name of the theory as two words: Attribution and motivation, I shall move on to relate both terms to L2 in educational space. Firstly, Attribution will be considered from the study of Weiner (1986), Kelly & Michela (1980) and Martinko, Harvey, Sikora & Douglas (2011) attribution theory. Thus, attribution is individuals’ explanations and perceived meanings for the causes of their positive or negative actions. This suggests that, in day to day activities people give meanings to other people decisions or steps taken and vice versa. For example, there are two bilingual learners A and B in a classroom. Learner A is repeating the class, Learner B see learner A frequently at the school library. Learner B will most likely form an attributional explanation, may be Learner A does not want to fail the class the second time, because the parents of learner A cannot afford to pay the school fees
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for that class the third time. Otherwise learner A will be withdrawn from school. The mentioned casual explanation by learner B can result in consequence. It is important to know that for every attributional explanation, there is a consequence.
Secondly, Bylund & Oostendorp (2014) states that motivation is a change in trend of a process due to cultural factors or lived experiences. Bylund & Oostendorp grouped motivation into two types, namely; instrumental and integrative. Instrumental motivation as the name suggests, is the drive or the booster to do activities because of the benefit that will be derived. This benefit is called the instrument. To illustrate, in the context of a less competent L2 students, the students’ instrument for making effort is first competently completing an academic task and to communicate proficiently in L2 for social and educational purpose. Integrative motivation on the other hand is the zeal to engage in an activity because of the individual desire to associate with a group of people. Perhaps to widen out or participating in social events.
Scholars have also categorized attribution in various scopes. In Weiner (1995) attribution is stated as intentional and controllability of a cause while Harvey & Martinko (2009) classify attribution into the locus of causality and stability dimensions. Further to this, Law (2009) asserts that attribution is categorized according to the success or failure of a particular action. Weiner’s classification suggests that attribution is a premeditated act which makes it possible to obtain a direct result. Whether the outcome of cause is positive or negative, it is traced to how the act is planned. Harvey & Martinko further group each dimension into two subgroups, namely internality and externality: stable and unstable causes. Internality of an attribution, for example, is when a lecturer wrongly marks a student because of poor and illegible handwriting and expression of idea, the student confirms this with other classmates but refuses to go back to the lecturer to re-mark. This means that the student has made an internal attribution. But if the student blames the lecturer directly for impatience while marking, then the student is making an external attribution. Stable causes are those factors that influence outcomes and behaviors over a prolonged period and the context. Examples are: governmental laws and institutional policies. Unstable causal factors are actions taken that are easy to change or adjust, e.g. efforts put into a task. Notably, outcomes that result from stable causes are not going to change in the near future. Meanwhile, unstable causes can
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result in improved varying outcomes (Harvey & Martinko, 2009: p.148). For instance in this study, bilingual students in South African whose academic work is affected by language policies carry the difficulty from primary to tertiary education. Outcomes as a result of the policies are inevitable. But in a situation when there are exceptions to the policies and these exceptions are put to use by the bilingual students then outcomes can be positive or negative.
Some researchers investigate the association between students’ cognitive and affective learning outcomes, focusing on their motivation to learn a second language (Chua, Wong & Chen, 2009). The results of a multiple regression analysis in Chua et al. (2009) study reveal that three dimensions of the learning environments were linked to students’ motivation to learn Chinese. These dimensions are: Teacher Support, Involvement and Task Orientation. The most attributed reason of motivation by students to learn Chinese is Task Orientation. Chua et al. (2009: p.60) assume that task–oriented classroom involvement invigorates students to be more focused on the task and this leads to the motivation of learning a language. In contrast, Ehrman et al., (2003) discuss expectancy as it draws upon the Attribution theory and how it facilitates second language learning. According to Ehrman et
al. (2003: p.321) expectancy leads to success. The reason is “some learners believe that their
language learning success is attributable to their own actions or abilities, while others believe that their success depends on other people or on fate.” If this is so, it suggests that students adopting translanguaging strategy as a means to cope with the challenge of less competent language as MoI boils down to the individual’s expected learning outcome.
Based on the findings of Chua et al., 2009 and Ehrman et al., 2003, I am inclined to believe that the students’ rate of expectancy leads to being more focused on the task. As such these two attribution reasons produce successful learning outcomes while most contextual learning challenges are overcome. Although it will be unreasonable in a learning context to expect that a poor learning outcome is attributable to someone else’s mistake or action being that there may be other unknown reason. Liu, Cheng, Chen & Wu (2009) found that through a multilevel longitudinal analysis of the academic achievements and expectations of some adolescents that they attribute most negative learning outcome to the influence of friends, relatives and of all their teachers rather than external casual factors like task difficulty and effort (Liu et al., 2009). The study further points out that those students that attribute negative
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outcomes to others are those whose academic expectations and achievements rates are low. “Students with attributions reflecting an internal sense of control, such as the belief that efforts affect learning outcomes, will work harder to improve themselves in school. On the other hand, when students attribute their success or failure to external factors, such as teacher instruction, parental discipline, or the help of friends, they tend not to invest more time in learning”( ibid, 2009: p.921). This finding appears to be consistent with the conclusions attested by McClure, Meyer, Garisch, Fischer, Weir & Walkey (2011) that most successful learning is strongly attributable to students’ effort while students’ low marks are attributed to teachers. Hence, it is deduced that there is a comparable relationship between students’ attributions and motivation which results in their academic achievement. Yet, motivation orientation takes first place in regard to students’ achievements, followed by causal attributions (e.g. effort, task) and social attributions (e.g. Teacher, family).
Lin, Wong & McBride-Chang (2012) found out that the motivation for reading and comprehension of bilingual students is considerably higher in L1 than English as a foreign language (EFL) reading. This is as a result of the bilingual student motivations for reading purpose which is prompted by their personal-efficacy, eagerness to know, participation and socialization with other bilingual students’. Equally, Law (2009) reiterates the importance of attribution belief and motivation in the reading competence of bilingual learner’s. Consequently, the effective and skillful reading of the bilingual learner was traced to their inherent confidence in brainpower and capability in demanding tasks.
There can be possible reason for a continuous effect of an action that is performed by someone. For a proficient individual, the connecting ties between his/her value; belief and motivation may be fundamental to decisions made for whatever purpose, whether academic or not (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991; Roberts, Davies & Jupp, 1992; McGroarty, 1996). The motivation a language user has for the language produces positive or negative outcomes when it comes to a bilingual student’s acceptance of the language for medium of instruction. This attests to the conclusion of Weiner (2010) that, the cause in a context leads to someone adopting an approach that might affect the cause positively.
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In same vein, Dyers & Abongdia (2010) explores the relationship between language attitudes and ideologies of some French and English bilingual students as well as the motivations for learning a language. Dyers & Abongdia reported that attitudes or motivations are not the only reasons bilinguals’ learn a language, but the bilingual students’ ideology of language used. This can be put as the personal thoughts of the bilingual to do what is right in a given context. If a bilingual strongly believes that using a language for learning has a reward, then the student may be motivated to use and show a positive attitude to the language.
These attributions (motivation and goal) may relatively account for classroom practices and academic performances of the bilingual (McGroarty, 1996). According to McGroarty (1996), “positive attitudes about language and language learning may be as much the result of success as the cause” (p.4). This indicates that the attitudes of the students go a long way to produce advantages or disadvantages with respect to instructional opportunities they may be faced with. More so, Baker (1992: p.9) relates the term ‘attitude’ to language and language users, narrowing it to bilingual education. Baker affirms that positive approach to language is meaningful to the “restoration, preservation, decay or death’’ of the language. It can be deduced that, if a certain group of language users prefer language A to language B, they will be exceptionally loyal in the maintenance of language A more than language B. In the context of bilingual education, the language attitudes of bilinguals will prompt the use of one language over the other, or the use of both languages interchangeably
2.8 Conclusion
In both word and spirit, this chapter has focused on the literature that relates to translanguaging strategies, how it is used by bilinguals in learning and teaching context and its meaning in the academic learning situations of bilingual students. It discussed the operational concepts such as learning strategies, language policies and academic collaboration that serve as a basis for this study as it examines translanguaging as a coping learning strategy of students who use English as a language of medium of instruction (MoI). Further to this, I have discussed challenges faced by bilingual students when learning in a less proficient language which in turn affects the practice of translanguaging. However, I have said that proficiency in the both languages of students thus contributes to the success of
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classroom translanguaging. This is in addition to a favorable learning contexts that takes into consideration the linguistic repertoires and personal motivation of students by educators and school authorities. The focal point of this study is the learning strategies adopted by challenged bilingual students learning in English and how the use of these adopted strategies has helped them to academically progress. Hence this study is set to examine the various underpinnings of attribution of motivation theory as the fundamentals for the use of coping learning strategies by the bilingual students who the use of English in learning is difficult. Thus, the abovementioned issues that were discussed in this chapter serve as a point of departure into an in-depth discussion on the methodology used in my study. I will lay out my research methodology in the next chapter and provide information as to the kind of research questions, the purpose of each adopted data collection instrument, the reason/rationale for the selected research method/approach and the research ethical procedure that I followed in this study.
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CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction
This chapter lays out the methodological framework used in the current study. In light of this, this chapter “transparently documents the research process” and concerns itself with the development of a method (Silverman, 2010: p.330). It consists of ten (10) sections. Beginning with the research questions that guided my study and a description of the research design, this chapter describes data collection techniques, reason for their choice and the appropriateness of each research tool and methods employed in the research. Next, the data collection procedures discuss step by step of the data collection. Following that the section on data size and population explains the basis of sampling and the selection condition of research participants. After that, the chapter provides a summary of the role of the researcher followed by, a report on the research setting, time, period and cost incurred during collection of data. The final part of this chapter discusses research ethical procedures, reflexivity and limitations of the study.
3.2. Research questions
The main research question intended for this study is: What are the translanguaging strategies of UWC first year bilingual students and can these strategies promote their academic collaboration?
The following sub questions are meant to reinforce the central concerns that underlie the main research question by pointing out its subsequent component parts;
(i.) What type of challenge(s) do UWC’s first year bilingual students face while learning through the medium of English at UWC?
ii.) What type of translanguaging strategies are used by UWC’s first year bilingual students during their academic collaboration?
(iii.) How do the different translanguaging strategies used by UWC’s first year bilingual students help them cope with the challenges of learning in English?
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(iv.) Can the translanguaging strategies of UWC’s first year bilingual students complement UWC language policy?