A Time Perspective of Motivational Fluctuation over Task Performance of Persian Language Learners (Intermediate Level)

Motivation for learning a new language does not have an all-or-none impact. It is gradually ‎formed and fluctuated over time and on each timescale has varying levels of influence on a ‎person’s endeavor to learn a language. At the present time, scholars claim that throughout the ‎Second Language Development (SLD) different timescales interact with each other and this ‎interaction is nonlinear, complex and dynamic in nature (de Bot ۲۰۱۵). The present study ‎attempted to investigate the motivational dynamics of a group of Persian learners in longer ‎timescales composed of a number of tasks performed on shorter timescales. Ten participants were ‎interviewed at the onset, while performing tasks and at the end of the course to better picture the ‎interplay of different motivational themes over time. The findings confirmed temporal variation ‎in participants’ motivation. Although some individual specific variation was observed, the ‎average group motivation was increasingly tending toward an overall stable state. Moreover, the ‎data revealed the fact that motivational themes were not equally effective over the course and ‎during task performance. It was shown, for example, that factors influencing learners’ initial ‎motivation were less influential during the task completion. Finally, L۲ motivation was found to ‎contain an interrelationship of a number of dynamic and complex factors which varied over ‎different timescales and had different motivational intensity in each specific stage. Finally, some ‎implications were driven from the findings of the study.‎

Keywords:

Motivation , Timescales , Second Language Development , Dynamic , Complex