Tri-facet model of language learning motivation in multi-cultural context

Through the researcher’s recent studies (2009, 2011) on foreign language learners’ motivation in Australian context, the third cultural factor was detected and learners’ motivation was found to be influenced by the culture of educational context where they learn a target foreign language. A questionnaire survey was conducted on university students (N = 93) learning Japanese as a foreign language to find a correlation between their motivational traits and their persistence in the study of Japanese in the Australian context. Also students learning various foreign languages at Bond university (N = 140) were investigated on their motivational changes having occurred during the course and factors affecting the changes, using questionnaires at the beginning and the end of the courses. Both studies revealed that besides the conventional account of the cultural distance between learners’ own and that of target language, the distance between learners’ own and the Australian educational culture where their language learning occurs also influences the learners’ motivational state. That is, when learners learn a foreign language in a foreign educational context, this additional third culture plays another role to affect the learners’ motivation. The study of cultural distance as a factor affecting motivation needs to consider not only how different or similar the learners’ own and the target culture is, but also how similar or different the educational and the cultural philosophy between the learner’s own and that of where the learning taking place.