Role of Motivation in the English Language Proficiency

Abstract

This research entitled ‘The Role of Motivation in the English Language Proficiency’ examines and determines the motivation status and explores the reading writing proficiency of both integratively and instrumentally motivated students. It mainly focuses on finding out the role of motivation status in nurturing language proficiency. In order to determine the students' tendency toward the abovementioned motivational orientations a population of 100 students were given motivational survey questionnaire based on five points Likert scale format of Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). In the selection of the students of private campuses I used random sampling procedure, but two TU constituent campuses were judgmentally selected since there are only two such campuses in the valley. The research found that the strongly instrumentally motivated students performed better than the integratively motivated ones as a whole, though in some cases the integratively motivated students did well. The first chapter introduces the topic ‘motivation’ in detail with various models and theories of motivation, sources of motivation and types of motivation. The second chapter deals with the methodology of the research. The chief tools of data collection are motivation survey questionnaires and reading and writing proficiency tests. This chapter presents the limitations of the research, too. The third chapter deals with the rigorous analysis and interpretation of the data collected. It presents the mean score ratings of reading and writing proficiency of instrumentally and integratively motivated students of both private and T.U. constituent campuses and found the mean score ratings high of writing proficiency of the instrumentally motivated students as a whole. Similarly, the more instrumentally motivated students have achieved high correlation between reading and writing proficiency tests as a whole. To find out the co-efficient of correlation between reading and writing proficiency of both instrumentally and integratively motivated students Pearson product moment co-efficient of correlation is used. The fourth chapter presents the findings and recommends some pedagogical implications of this research. This study found out that, in comparison to integratively motivated students, the majority of students were instrumentally motivated and they have also acquired higher degree of correlation on reading and writing proficiency tests. Similarly, the students of T.U. constituent campuses found equally motivated, but the students of private campuses found more instrumentally motivated than integratively. Thus, this study argues that instrumental motivation contributes to enhancing higher English language proficiency in a number of cases, though integrative motivation also enhances higher language proficiency.