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Students’ instrumental and integrative motivation in learning English
Septimus Hanyeq
Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Bibit Suhatmady
Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Syamdianita
Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Corresponding email: [email protected]
Abstract: Some studies have indicated that it is very impossible to successfully reach goals and good achievement without sufficient motivation, i.e., Mayer in Liu (2010), Williams and Burden in Kelly (2005), and Dornyei (1998). Brown (2000) then explains that in the context of learning, there are two types of motivation. They are instrumental and integrative motivations. This current research attempted to address relevant research questions related to (1) type of motivation that the students have in learning English and (2) the students’ reasons related to their motivation in learning English. The findings revealed that the students have instrumental and integrative motivations. When being asked about the students’ reasons related to their motivation in learning English, it comprises many aspects or indicators related to instrumental and integrative motivation.
For reasons related to instrumental motivation, they learn English because it is useful in getting an excellent job in the future, to study or work abroad, to pass a test (school test or TOEFL/IELTS test) and to be able to read materials in the English language for school assignments or competition material. Then for reasons related to integrative motivation, they learn English because they like the language, they would like to make friends with people from English-speaking countries, they are interested in English movies and songs, they enjoy talking in English and they want to understand English life style and culture as reference for them to increase their knowledge and insight about the outside world.
Keywords: Instrumental Motivation, Integrative Motivation, Learning English
Introduction
In this global era, people who are from every part of the world can meet and have an interaction. When they meet, there will be communication between them. To communicate well, they need to speak a language that is known and understood by everyone. As we know, English takes that role as an international language. Therefore, it will make them decide to learn English. The fact mentioned above is an example of a reason that drives some people to learn English. By learning English, some people hope that they can communicate in English with people from English speaking countries or understand information in English. So, when people finally decide to learn English, it must be because they have a reason.
It is also the same as a student that learns English. There is a reason that encourages and stimulates students to learn English.
Williams and Burden in Kelly (2005) defined motivation as continuous efforts towards a set goal, where the value the student places on that goal will determine the effort intended for achieving that goal. Mayer in Liu (2010) adds that when students are motivated to learn, they try harder to understand the material and learn more deeply, so the result is that they have better ability to apply what they have learned into their life. Also, Dornyei (1998) states that it is very impossible to successfully reach goals and good achievement without sufficient motivation, even people with the most remarkable abilities. So, motivation drives students to learn English, and they may have various types of motivation in learning English.
103 Brown (2000: 75) explains that in the context of learning, there are two types of motivation.
They are instrumental and integrative motivations. According to Mun (2011), instrumental motivation is a motivation that drives learners to learn a language with a more useful purpose of the language such as applying for a well- paid job or achieving higher social status. On the other hand, he defines integrative motivation as a motivation that moves learners to learn a language because of the positive attitudes toward the target language group and their intention to join together with the target language community. These types of motivation have a precise orientation and goal that can be pursued by the students who have these motivations in learning. The orientation and goal can be related to the utilitarian purpose of language (instrumental) and joining the target language community (integrative).
Because of these unique characteristics of these motivations, the researcher was interested in analyzing them in the real field.
To learn English, there are many ways that students can choose. One of them is through an English course. Mulawarman University Language Centre,
located on Jl. P. Flores No. 1 Samarinda, is an institution that offers English course program. It has many kinds of classes that cover various students’ ability levels or purposes in learning English. One of the classes is Conversation Class. It is for those who have excellent English necessary skills and want to use it in oral communication. The students in Conversation Class will be involved in discussion or debate that will make them practice their communication skill. Currently, it consists of five students. They are one undergraduate student and four senior high school students.
The researchers were interested in analyzing types of motivation in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University Language Centre Samarinda because Conversation Class is a different class from other classes in Mulawarman University Language Centre. It has a specific purpose for students who attend this class which is improving their communication skill. Also, there is only one
Conversation Class in Mulawarman University Language Centre so students in Conversation Class must have their reasons that make them choose this class which can be related to what their motivation in learning English is.
Generally, most of the classes in Mulawarman University Language Centre are based on students’ ability levels which can be known from their grades at school or the result of the placement test that they take before attending one of the classes. Nonetheless, students who attend Conversation Class can choose this class at the time they sign up without taking a placement test at first. The researcher thought that there must be reasons behind their intention in learning English in Conversation Class. The researcher also saw that the students come from different academic backgrounds, ages, and English capabilities.
They thought that it would add more explanation to the reasons why they choose this class.
Mun (2011) did a study about instrumental and integrative motivation as factors influencing third-year Chinese undergraduates of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) in learning English as a second language in Malaysia. The study shows that the students tend to have a stronger instrumental motivation compared to integrative motivation in their second language learning process. As a whole, they learn English because of certain academic and professional reasons such as to pass an examination or to apply for a well-paid job.
On the other hand, of course, there were also students that learned English because of integrative motivation. However, they were in the minority group in this study.
In 2012, Zanghar did a study to find out instrumental and integrative motivations among Libyan undergraduate students of English as a foreign language (EFL). It investigates whether EFL Libyan students are instrumentally or integratively motivated to study English. The findings show that EFL Libyan students were highly instrumentally and integratively motivated to study English, but their integrative motivation came out to be a little higher than their instrumental motivation.
104 Also, Choubsaz and Choubsaz (2014) did a study investigated instrumental and integrative motivation among Iranian undergraduate students. The findings of the study indicate that Iranian EFL learners are both instrumentally and integratively motivated to learn English.
Also, it was shown that students are highly motivated towards learning English. The results of the study seem to be helpful for EFL teachers and curriculum developers to adjust the common trends of ELT in Iran based on some realistic points of view regarding the learners’ motivations.
Therefore, this research attempted to address two research questions related to (1) the students’ types of motivation as well as (2) the students’ reasons related to their motivation in learning English.
Method
This current study was designed as qualitative research that aims to find out what type of motivation that students have and the students’
reasons related to their motivation in learning English in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University Language Centre.
According to Spradley (1980), a research subject in descriptive research is called social situation that consists of three elements: place, actors, and activities that interact well one to another. The researcher chose all five students in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University Language Centre. There was only one Conversation Class in Mulawarman University Language Centre, and it only consisted of five students, so the researcher decided to employ all of them as research subjects.
The data of the study were the results of the questionnaire and interview transcript. The sources of data were the students and interview guideline. The questionnaire used in this study gave information about what type of motivation that students have in learning English based on their answers for each statement. In doing the interview, the researchers asked some questions of the students as the research subjects.
The researchers adopted the statements related to integrative and instrumental motivation in
the Integrative and Instrumental Orientation Scales of Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery. The researcher did a change in the way of answering the questionnaire by using “Yes or No” options rather than Likert Scale as in the original version. It was done to make the students answer it more accessible and more straightforward. Also, it was done to keep the characteristic of descriptive research become primary in this study.
There are eight statements in the questionnaire related to the types of motivation investigated in this study. The first 4-item of the questionnaire is related to integrative motivation. The scale includes four items to find out how much the learners learn English with a real interest to join together with the target language, culture, community, their way of life, literature etc. This will show their integrative motivation towards the target language. The items are (1) Studying English can be important to me because it will allow me to be more at ease with other people who speak English, (2) Studying English can be important for me because it will allow me to meet and converse with more and varied people, (3) Studying English can be important for me because it will enable me to understand better and appreciate English art and literature, and (4) Studying English can be essential for me to because I will be able to participate more freely in the activities of other cultural groups. The next 4-item of the questionnaire is related to instrumental motivation. On this scale, there are four items, and the students are asked to measure their practical reason in learning English. The items are (5) Studying English can be important for me because I'll need it for my future career, (6) Studying English can be important for me because it will make me a more knowledgeable person, (7) Studying English can be important for me because I think it will someday be useful in getting a good job, and (8) Studying English can be essential for me to because other people will respect me more if I have knowledge of a foreign language.
Findings and Discussion
Based on the results of the questionnaire, the
105 researcher found that the research subjects have instrumental and integrative motivations in learning English in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University Language Centre.
However, R1 appeared to have integrative motivation more dominant because she fulfilled all indicators related to integrative motivation while she only fulfilled two of the four indicators related to instrumental motivation.
R2, R3, and R5 appeared to have both motivations in balance because each of them fulfilled three of the four indicators for each type of motivation. Also, R4 appeared to have both motivations in balance because she fulfilled all indicators in each type of motivation.
Based on the results of th e interview, students’ reasons for learning English in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University were related to the types of motivation that they have shown in their results of the questionnaire before. Also, their reasons comprise of many aspects or indicators related to instrumental and integrative motivation.
They learn English not only because of wanting to get a good grade or job in the future but also willing to interact with the language owner of English itself which is, in this case, are English native speakers.
For instrumental motivation, the result of questionnaire and interview from R1 to R5 showed that they learn English because they think that it can support their study, social life and career in the future. It is in line with what Brown (2000:75) said that the focus on instrumental motivation is to reach specific career, educational or financial goals such as to achieve academic achievement or to get a better job which makes a better salary for someone’s life. Then according to Krashen in Al-Ansari (2000), instrumental motivation is the learner’s desire to achieve proficiency in the language for usage or practical purposes to achieve specific goals such as to pass an examination or to use it in their work. It is also can be found in the students’ reasons while they stated that they learn English to pass a practical test at school, TOEFL or IELTS tests and they can use English when they work later because they think that nowadays people would like to hire people who can speak an international
language.
Mun (2011) also said that instrumental motivation goes for more usage purpose of English such as applying for a well-paid job or achieving higher social status. It can be seen from R1’s reasons that she had an example of her aunt that become successful person now because her aunt is working abroad which requires good English skills. Furthermore, Nicholson (2013) added that instrumental motivation deals with the practical advantages of learning a target language as a means for achieving instrumental goals. For example, reading technical material. It is also shown in R2, R3 and R4’ reasons while they stated that their experience in learning English helps them to understand when they have to read materials in English for school assignments and preparation of English competition which required them to explore materials in the English language.
Then for integrative motivation, it is related to English native speakers as the target language group. Gardner (2001) expressed that integrative motivation emphasizes an individual’s interest in learning the language and willingness to expend the effort to make it part of their behavioral choice. It was shown on R4’ reasons that said she enjoys having a conversation in English because if she speaks English over and over, it will practice her speaking skill indirectly. Additionally, Mun (2011) pointed out that integrative motivation makes learners have positive attitudes toward the target language group, and they intend to join together with the target language community. The researcher found that the research subjects, especially R4 and R5, showed positive attitudes toward the target language group. They expected to not only interact but also make friends with English- speaking people. Furthermore, they showed their intention to know and experience different cultures from English native speakers. They realized that it is good to improve their knowledge and insight about the outside world.
Conclusion
To sum up, the researchers found that it is an
106 essential thing to recognize students’
motivation in learning English. This study showed that it is possible for a student to have more than one type of motivation in which the results of this study has presented that students in Conversation Class of Mulawarman University Language Centre have instrumental and integrative motivations in learning English.
Students are human beings with developing the
mind, feeling and motivation to deal with their environment, especially the learning environment. Not only the students themselves, but the English teacher and their family should appreciate the existence of their motivation in learning English as people who are also involved in their learning environment.
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