EXTRAPOLACIÓN Y RESCATE ADIMENSIONAL DE LA VISITA A

In order to relate the preceding theoretical considerations to the students’ actual motivation to improve their pronunciation in the language laboratory, an investiga- tion involving students of English at the University of Vienna was carried out. The target group consisted of students of English who had registered either for the BA programme or the teacher education programme at the Vienna English Depart- ment.

6.1. The questionnaire

As the survey was carried out within the regular language laboratory classes, it was necessary to keep it as short as possible in order to avoid spending too much class-time. So, the questionnaire was restricted to four pages plus one page for comments and personal information about each individual participant.

Dörnyei (2010: 13) recommends printing questionnaires in the form of a short booklet to make them appear even shorter. However, for reasons of production costs, the questionnaire drawn up finally consisted of a set of five photocopied pages, and to make the matter less monotonous, varied question types were used (cf. appendix). The structure of the questionnaire and also the design of the particular items follow the basic principles developed by Gardner (2004) and Dörnyei (2007).

The questions related to the students' motivation come right at the begin- ning of the questionnaire, taking the participants directly into the core of the mat- ter. This order was chosen, because the students should not be distracted from the actual task by answering a number of questions about their person and the situation of their studies (Dörnyei 2007: 111). Moreover, the section dealing with personal matters was restricted to those features that could be of certain interest in the course of the evaluation of the central questionnaire results. Of course, all participants were informed that all the material would be treated as strictly confi- dential and that answers expressing a negative attitude towards pronunciation work would not affect final marks or have any other negative consequences.

The main section of the questionnaire survey was concerned with the stu- dents’ motivation for doing pronunciation work in the language laboratory and also with their respective needs and willingness to improve their pronunciation. The following four questions were the basis for the actual questions in the student questionnaire:

Category a) What is the students’ general attitude towards LLPW8_?

Category b) What is the students’ motivation to improve their pronunciation? Category c) What factors cause demotivation during LLPW?

Category d) What are the needs of students doing LLPW?

In questions belonging to category a, the participants were asked to convey their personal attitude towards the importance of pronunciation work in the language laboratory. The questions of category b were meant to provide a picture of the students’ general level of motivation. The answers to both these categories were also linked to the personal information section in the course of the evaluation in order to find out whether there were any significant differences between the groups of future teachers and BA students, and in particular, if future language teachers see pronunciation as more important than those students not in teacher education (cf. chapter 2.4).

In category c, some questions were devoted to demotivation factors. The focus of interest was, of course, on showing possibilities to overcome or change settings that are demotivating, and whether the language laboratory itself could be seen as a factor of motivation or demotivation, as some authors tend to argue (Anderson 1974: 97).

Finally, category d dealt with the needs of students working in the language laboratory. As this field was one that was likely to show great differences among the students asked, it was also the only part that included open questions where students could actually express their needs and thoughts on the matter. For rea-

sons of reassurance – to back up the student's answers – some fields of interest were addressed by more than one question.

The classification of questions according to the four different categories is not revealed by the questionnaire in order to prevent the students from losing in- terest too quickly and reading the individual items without the necessary care. The questions are rather grouped according to their format (question types) and each section is introduced by a short explanation. The questionnaire began with the most important behavioural questions, followed by attitudinal questions, and questions covering the field of motivation as well as students’ personal attitudes and values concerning pronunciation improvement (Dörnyei 2007: 102). Finally, the factual questions concerning some personal details of the students (see text example below) were asked without the risk of biasing the motivational parts of the survey (Dörnyei 2007: 111). As shown above, the answers to these questions made it possible to group the participants according to the type of their study and curriculum, to their age and some aspects of their career. The question if and how often the student had already tried to pass the pronunciation course may be rather unpleasant, but is necessary as it may be closely linked to student’s moti- vation to work on pronunciation. At the end of this section, students could indi- cate if they were willing to participate in a personal interview or not. In case they were, they received an e-mail after the evaluation of the questionnaire and the in- terview was conducted shortly after.

Personal information section of the questionnaire.

of reassurance – to back up the student's answers – some fields of interest were addressed by more than one question. The classification of questions according to the four different categories is not revealed by the questionnaire in order to prevent the students from losing interest too quickly and reading the individual items without the necessary care. The questions are rather grouped according to their format (question types) and each section is introduced by a short explana- tion. The questionnaire began with the most important behavioural questions, fol- lowed by attitudinal questions, and questions covering the field of motivation as well as students’ personal attitudes and values concerning pronunciation im- provement (Dörnyei 2007: 102). Finally, the factual questions concerning some personal details of the students (see text example below) were asked without the risk of biasing the motivational parts of the survey (Dörnyei 2007: 111). As shown above, the answers to these questions made it possible to group the participants according to the type of their study and curriculum, to their age and some as- pects of their career. The question if and how often the student had already tried to pass the pronunciation course may be rather unpleasant, but is necessary as it may be closely linked to student’s motivation to work on pronunciation. At the end of this section, students could indicate if they were willing to participate in a per- sonal interview or not. In case they were, they received an e-mail after the evalua- tion of the questionnaire and the interview was conducted shortly after.

Personal information section of the questionnaire.

25. I find the language lab A motivating B demotivating. Please give your reason for this answer.

26. The language lab course A takes care of B doesn’t take care of my pronunciation learning needs. Please describe your pronunciation learning needs.

Part 4: Personal Information. Please give some information about yourself and