La construcción narrativa

Ryan and Deci (2000) posit that the evolved inner resources of humans are important for their personality development and behavioural self-regulation as an individual. Their self determination theory questions individuals’ inherent growth tendencies and inborn psychological needs, which stand as a basis for individuals’ self motivation and personality integration. They define three kinds of needs: competence, relatedness and autonomy. Competence refers to social- contextual events such as feedback and communication. Autonomy refers to experiencing behaviour as self determined or a personal choice, and offers opportunities for self direction. On the other hand, relatedness refers to feelings of security and belonging.

In this theory, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation are important terms. Ryan and Deci (2000:71) explain intrinsic motivation as undertaking an activity for the inner satisfaction of the activity itself. For intrinsic motivation, competence is not enough by itself; autonomy and relatedness are also needed, because for inner satisfaction learners need to feel supportive rather than controlling, and they should also feel secure. An example given for this is that lower intrinsic motivation appears in classrooms where students feel that their teachers are cold and non-caring. Whereas a self determined form of intrinsic motivation appears when an individual values a behavioural goal or regulation, which means that the action is recognised as individually important. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity for extrinsic

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reward. Extrinsic motivation is related to controlling. Amotivation refers to not valuing an activity, with a consequent lack of any intention of acting.

As Ryan and Deci (2000) propose, self determination theory addresses how nonintrinsically motivated behaviours can become self determined, and how the social environment affects this process. In order to transform these nonintrinsically motivated behaviours to a self determined form, Ryan and Deci (2000:71) explain two terms: internalisation and integration. Internalisation refers to accepting a value or regulation, and integration refers to the transformation of this regulation into one’s own, and it becoming part of one’s sense of self. Ryan and Deci (2000) also state that internalisation and integration are not only the central issues of childhood socialisation, but are also important for the regulation of behaviour throughout life.

This theory claims that extrinsic motivation can vary in terms of its autonomy. Ryan and Deci (2000) explain it by using an example, suggesting that a student might do his or her homework because he or she understands its value for a future career, and thus the motivation is extrinsic. Another student might do his or her homework for their parents’ praise, and so the motivation is again extrinsic. However, the first example differs from the second, for it includes personal endorsement and a feeling of choice. Therefore, Ryan and Deci (2000) offer introjected and integrated motivation, which are relatively controlled. Introjected motivation is a partially controlled form of regulation, in which the individual performs activities to bypass guilt or anxiety, while integrated regulation refers to the most autonomous form of extrinsic motivation. This form of motivation is also considered to be extrinsic, because the behaviour is done to gain separable outcomes on behalf of inherent enjoyment.

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As Ryan and Deci (2000:73) state, given the importance of internalisation for personal experience and behavioural outcomes, the critical problem becomes how to promote autonomous regulation for extrinsically motivated behaviours. Regarding this, they ask a question: what are the social conditions that inhibit internalisation and integration? Ryan and Deci (2000:73) explain, the reason why people perform extrinsically motivated behaviours is because extrinsically motivated behaviours are modeled or valued by significant others to whom they would like to feel attached or related. According to Ryan and Deci (2000:73), this suggests that the need to feel belongingness and connectedness with others is central to the internalisation of extrinsically motivated behaviour. In addition to this, Ryan and Deci (2000:73) explain that, for the internalisation of extrinsically motivated behaviour, a function of perceived competence is needed. As Ryan and Deci (2000:73) further explain, people are perhaps likely to adopt activities that relevant social groups value when they feel efficacious with respect to those activities. Furthermore, Deci and Ryan (2000) state that “contexts can yield external regulation if there are salient rewards or threats and the person feels competent enough to comply; contexts can yield introjected regulation if a relevant reference group endorses the activity and the person feels competent and related; but contexts can yield autonomous regulation only if they are autonomy supportive, thus allowing the person to feel competent, related and autonomous” (Ryan and Deci, 2000, p.73).

As Crookes and Schmidt (1991:489) claim, the implication of this theory for L2 motivation can be that the teacher is the one who raises the interest of the L2 learner and engages learners in the learning process. Thus, at the classroom level, learners need internal and instrumental motives. Therefore, Crookes and Schmidt (1991) offer the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

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However, they also state that the extrinsic evaluation of a teacher can temporarily strengthen motivation, though it may negatively affect ongoing motivation, because it can prevent the formation of more intrinsic task related goals. Therefore, whereas external rewards may affect learners’ success for that moment, ongoing motivation is affected by more intrinsic, task related goals.

Correspondingly, Oxford and Shearin (1994) suggest that language teachers can sometimes praise their students with extrinsic rewards, but intrinsic rewards which come from students or from the language task itself are more powerful in L2 learning than teacher-provided extrinsic rewards.