AbstractSince all of you have been

Abstract
Since all of you have been informed by Aj. Daranee Pummawan that the first class of the summer is mine, here's the reading assignment for you all: Read the article

This paper analyzes and determines the various socio-psychological orientations of undergraduate students studying General English in universities of Sirjan. The study focuses on instrumental and integrative orientations of students in learning English as a foreign language. In order to determine the students’ tendency towards the mentioned orientations a population of 255 university students were given a questionnaire based on Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). In effect, the research shows that contrary to some researchers’ beliefs that in foreign language situations instrumental orientation is the dominant orientation, students were highly motivated in both instrumental and integrative orientations. This study of socio-psychological variables of the students will possibly provide additional insights in better identifying existing motivational challenges and taking more realistic perspectives about the ELT (English Language Teaching) situation in the country. Finally, several suggestions for teachers and some recommendations regarding future researches in this area in Iran have been highlighted.

Introduction

Motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second/foreign language learning. The original impetus in second/foreign (L2) motivation research comes from the social psychology since learning the language of another community simply cannot be separated from the learners’ social dispositions towards the speech community in question. Lambert (1963b) has proposed a 'social psychological model' in which he has emphasized cognitive factors such as language aptitudes and intelligence as well as affective factors such as attitudes and motivation. In his model, he proposes that the extent to which an individual successfully acquires a second language will depend upon ethnocentric tendencies, attitudes towards the other community, orientation towards language learning and motivation. Another pioneer in this field, Gardner (1985), defines L2 motivation as “the extent to which an individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (p: 10); more specifically, motivation is conceptualized to subsume three components, motivational intensity, desire to learn the language, and an attitude towards the act of learning the language. Motivation in Gardner’s theory does not contain any integrative or instrumental elements. There does exist an integrative or instrumental dichotomy in Gardner’s model but this is at the orientation (i.e. goal) level, and as such, is not part of the core motivation component; rather, the two orientations function merely as motivational antecedents that help to arouse motivation and direct it towards a set of goals, either with a strong interpersonal quality (integrative) or a strong practical quality (instrumental). The present study intended to highlight the extent of Iranian university students’ motivation in learning English as a foreign language and their differences in instrumental and integrative orientations. Furthermore, the findings of study may promise some improvements and changes regarding teaching and learning L2.

Literature review

Status of English in Iran (a brief overview)

Considering the growth of international relations of our society with other nations and the extended interest towards today’s growing technology and science throughout the world, learning English language as an international language has found a greater importance compared to previous years. Increase in the numbers of language institutes and their students also increasing interest of parents for their children to learn English can be a good evidence for the recent value of English language in our country. But unfortunately most of the students are not satisfied with their abilities in English after studying it for seven years in their schools and also passing some credits in universities. There are certainly different reasons for this problem but one of the reasons which is the primary concern of this study is motivation. As it was mentioned in the previous part motivation is classified into two parts: instrumental and integrative. Having a greater knowledge of these subjects can help teachers, textbook developers and the educational authorities to find new ways for improving the quality of teaching and learning English in our educational system. The question addressed through this study is: To what extent the university students of Iran are instrumentally or integratively oriented towards English language learning?

Motivation, orientation and second language learning

A key framework that has driven much of the research on L2 motivation is Gardner's (1985, 1988; see also Gardner and Macintyre 1993) Socio-Educational Model of SLA, in which motivation is conceptualized as a complex of variables, specifically, "the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language" (Gardner 1985: 10). Motivation is hypothesized to have a direct effect on L2 achievement and is itself purportedly influenced by a number of other social-psychological variables. One such variable that has received extensive attention in the L2 literature is the learner's orientation or reason for learning the L2 (Gardner 1985, 1988; see also Gardner and Macintyre 1993). Brown (2001) states that:

Motivation refers to the intensity of one's impetus to learn. An integrative orientation simply means the learner is pursuing a second language for social and/or cultural purposes, and within that purpose, a learner could be driven by a high level of motivation or a low level. Likewise, in an instrumental orientation, learners are studying a language in order to further a career or academic goal. The intensity or motivation of a learner to attain that goal could be high or low. (p.75)

Gardner and his colleagues found that integrative motivation, which refers to ‘a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the other language group’ (Lambert, 1974, p.98), was a more powerful predictor of linguistic achievement as it was consistently correlated with L2 linguistic achievement. Instrumental integration, which refers to ‘the practical value and advantages of learning a new language’ (Lambert, 1974, p.98), was found to be related to L2 linguistic achievement in some studies. One area where instrumental motivation can prove to be successful is in the situation where the learner is provided with no opportunity to use the target language and therefore, no chance to interact with members of the target group. Lukmani (1972) found that an instrumental orientation was more important than an integrative orientation in non-westernized female learners of L2 English in Bombay. The social situation helps to determine both what kind of orientation learners have and what kind is most important for language learning. Therefore, one concern of this study is to investigate Iranian students’ motivational orientation to see in Iran as a country in which there is no chance to use target language or interact with native speakers is the instrumental orientation the dominant type of orientation?

English in universities of Sirjan

There are three major universities in Sirjan: Islamic Azad University, technological faculty (under supervision of Bahonar university of Kerman) and Payame Noor University. Different majors of these three universities have to pass a three credit course of General English. They attend two class sessions a week (each 75 minutes) and the purpose of the course is mostly reading comprehension. There is an average of 40 students in each class.

Research questions and hypothesis

Theoretical and experimental investigations show that in a foreign language context instrumental orientation should have dominance but there was no practical work for proving or rejecting this idea among Iranian students. More specifically, the following corresponding directional hypotheses were formulated for the following study:

H1: Students are highly motivated in learning a foreign language.

H2: There is a significant difference among the integrative orientations of university students of Sirjan. (Among students of each university and also among students of all three universities)

H3: There is a significant difference among the instrumental orientations of university students of Sirjan. (Among students of each university and also among students of all three universities)

H4: There is a significant difference between the instrumental and integrative orientations of university students of Sirjan.

H5: There is a significant difference between the instrumental and integrative orientations of students of each university in Sirjan.

Methodology

Participants

In this study a sum of 255 university students (male and female students) were selected by stratified random sampling from the total population of university students of Sirjan(758 students). The reason for selecting these universities (Islamic Azad University, Technological faculty and Payame Noor University) is mainly twofold: firstly, these are the only universities of the city and secondly university students seem to be a better choice for such an investigation. Because of the difference in number of students in each university the number of participants was separately computed for each one.

Percentage

Frequency (f)

University

69.4

177

Azad

9.8

25

Technological faculty

20.8

53

Payame noor

100

255

Total

Table 1: Frequency and percentage of participants



Procedure and Instrumentation

The Integrative and Instrumental Orientation sca