Marco conceptual

Being defined as 'the target motivational outcome' (Skinner and Belmont, 1993) or 'the motivated behavior' (Guilloteaux and Dörnyei, 2008), learners‘ engagement is conceived as an essential construct of motivation theories. Within the L2 field, motivation has evolved as a largely independent area ‗originating in a concern to address the unique social, psychological, behavioural and cultural complexities that

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acquiring a new communication code entails‘ (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2010: 39). In order to understand learners‘ engagement within L2 motivation theories, it is important to review the three distinct phases that L2 motivation has gone through:

The social psychological period (1959-1990) – characterised by the work of Robert Gardner and his associates in Canada.

The cognitive-situated period (during the 1990s) – characterised by work drawing on cognitive theories in educational psychology.

The process-oriented period (the turn of the century) – characterised by an interest in motivational change (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2010: 39-40). Until the 1990s, the field of L2 motivation had been dominated by a social- psychological approach that was influenced by the work of Gardner and Lambert (1972, 1985). Coming from a multicultural context such as Canada, Gardner and Lambert perceived second languages as mediators between the different ethno- linguistic communities, and, therefore, considered the motivation to learn a second language as highly influenced by attitudes towards the L2 community. Based on empirical research, Gardner and his Canadian associates formulated a complex model of L2 motivation (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2010). Two components of this model became well-known: integrative and instrumental orientation. The former is associated with a positive attitude towards the L2 community. The latter is related to the potential pragmatic gains of L2 proficiency, such as getting a better job (Guilloteaux, 2007).

The 1990s witnessed a shift in focus towards a cognitive-situated approach to L2 motivation when the social psychological tradition had started to be critiqued by

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different authors and researchers (e.g. Brown, 1990; Crookes and Schmidt, 1991; Dörnyei, 1994). The L2 motivation work in the 1990s was distinct as it highlighted:

The need to bring language motivation research in line with the cognitive revolution in mainstream motivational psychology.

The desire to move from the broad perspective of ethnolinguistic communities and learners' general disposition and attitudes to language learning, and sharpen the focus on a more situated analysis of motivation in specific learning contexts (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2010: 46).

One of the main drives behind the 'reform' was to 'direct attention more closely to motivation in the classroom setting and to the concerns and needs of teachers for whom social psychological research on motivation had little practical relevance' (ibid.). The social psychological approach had not provided sufficient descriptions of the classroom dimension of L2 motivation that could have been used to explain specific learners' behaviours and to generate practical guidelines to motivate learners in particular classroom settings (Guilloteaux and Dörnyei, 2008).

In response to calls for a wider vision of L2 motivation, Tremblay and Gardner (1995) incorporated three concepts from expectancy-value and goal theories; i.e., language attitudes leading to motivational behaviour which in its turn leads to achievement. The theoretical framework of L2 motivation started to expand. To exemplify how, I use Crookes‘s and Schmidt‘s (1991) framework to illustrate how views of L2 motivation were expanded beyond the psychological construct. Crookes's and Schmidt's (1991) L2 Motivation Framework had four components: interest, relevance, expectancy, and satisfaction. Dörnyei and Ushioda (2010) provide a summary of what these components refer to:

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Interest is related to intrinsic motivation and is centred around the individual's inherent curiosity and desire to know more about himself or herself and his or her environment.

Relevance refers to the extent to which the student feels that the instruction is connected to important personal needs, values, or goals. At a macro level, this component coincides with instrumentality; at the level of the learning situation, it refers to the extent to which the classroom instruction and course content are seen to be conductive to achieving the goal, that is, to mastering the L2.

Expectancy refers to the perceived likelihood of success and is related to the learner's self-confidence and self-efficacy at a general level; at the level of the learning situation, it concerns perceived task difficulty, the amount of effort required, the amount of available assistance and guidance, the teacher's presentation of the task, and familiarity with the task type.

Satisfaction concerns the outcome of an activity, referring to the combination of extrinsic rewards such as praise or good marks and to intrinsic rewards such as enjoyment and pride (2010: 50).

In this model, elements like instruction, relevance of course content, and assistance illustrate how L2 motivation started to extend beyond the psychological nature of individual traits and attitudes towards a more contextualized and situated view of L2 motivation.

The third phase in L2 motivation theory is the process-oriented period which portrays 'the temporal organisation of motivation, that is, to portray motivational processes as they happen in time' (ibid. 60). They argue that:

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a basic step for analysing motivation from a temporal perspective is to clarify the conceptual distinction between motivation for engagement (choices, reasons, wishes, intentions, decisions), and motivation during engagement (how one feels, behaves and responds during the course of learning) (Emphasis in original, ibid., 60-1).

Thus, the theoretical scope of this research is within the third phase of L2 motivation. Engagement is investigated as a motivated behaviour encouraged by motivating classroom instruction and reflected in the feelings, behaviours, and responses of learners‘ during the course of learning.