The Role of Students' Attitudes and Motivation in Second ... - CALICO

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68 CALICO Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1 were not graded on the quality of their chat conversations. That is, the differences between the students who chatted for only 5 minutes and those who chatted for the entire hour must have resulted from a strong desire on the part of some to chat in the target language because of the perceived intrinsic value and enjoyment derived from this activity. This observation is similar to that of Gliksman, Gardner, and Smythe (1982) who found that integratively motivated students were more satisfied and rewarded for their class participation throughout the duration of the course than other students. In this regard, students’ participation in the online chat sessions served as a good predictor for determining their motivation to study the target language. The Importance of Teachers Teacher-specific motivational components emerged as crucial factors when students evaluated the learning situation in LOL courses, as is often stressed in CALL literature for the effective use of the technology (e.g., Belz, 2003; Glisan, Dudt, & Howe, 1998; Hertz, 1987; Jones, 1986). The results of the statistical analyses and students’ course evaluations suggest that EF students had a less positive language-learning experience than students in the other LOL courses and that the teacher variable may have been the main source of this difference. In fact, the students reported in the course evaluations that the teacher was the center of their satisfaction in the LOL courses (Ushida, 2003). This result is similar to that of Wudthayagorn (2000) who found a positive correlation among students’ attitudes toward the teacher, classes, learning, and behavioral attitudes among young learners of Japanese. These results suggest that if students like the teacher, they enjoy the class, are satisfied with their learning experiences, and have positive behavioral attitudes toward the study of the target language regardless of the instructional format (i.e., traditional face-to-face, online, or hybrid). These results indicate that teachers can be influential in affecting students’ motivation and attitudes and in creating a learning community in which students can study a language with less anxiety. Teachers seemed to play the most important role in shaping the culture of the LOL class. It was the teachers who decided how to use or implement the course materials for the class. They had to make a variety of decisions during the course, affecting how and what they did during their oncea-week class and their 20-minute individual meetings, and how they instructed or guided students and LAs to do the required activities. Naturally, teachers’ instructions influenced how students studied for this course and how students worked with their classmates and LAs. All of these elements created a culture for each class, and consequently influenced students’ attitudes and motivation. The biggest inherent disadvantage of online courses is reported to be reduced interaction between teachers and students (Trotter, 2002). Thus, the importance of human interaction has been repeatedly emphasized for successful online course delivery regardless of the subject (Gilbert, 2001; Hiss, 2000; Lewis, 2000; White, 2000). Unlike traditional classes where teachers use various teaching strategies to
Eiko Ushida 69 engage their students in learning the subject matter interactively and effectively, online course structures seem to limit the use of such teaching strategies. The results of this study suggest that successful LOL teachers used various teaching strategies to maintain good interaction with students without fully relying on students’ self-motivation and responsibility (Ushida, 2003). Teachers’ accounts implied that the process of teaching LOL courses was still new, therefore difficult, but that it could also be challenging and profound. CONCLUSION This study empirically investigated the role of students’ motivation and attitudes on the study of French or Spanish in LOL courses based on two commonly used frameworks for L2 motivation: those of Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) and Dörnyei (1994). Both frameworks were found helpful to interpret the results of the study. Procrastination has been frequently reported as one of the critical problems for online students (e.g., Gilbert, 2001; Murday & Ushida, 2002). Courses like LOL may make regular study difficult for students who cannot wisely direct their own learning processes. To put it another way, the LOL courses can offer flexibility in terms of pace of learning and how to learn; yet, at the same time, not all students can take advantage of such a learning environment and may find it difficult to manage their own learning. It seems that there is a sort of dynamic tension between the learning materials that students have to work with and how they approach them, which course developers and/or teachers cannot predict. Motivated students can take advantage of the LOL instruction, and effective LOL instruction can motivate students. Indeed, “good instruction is good instruction, regardless of the delivery system” (Bush, 1997, p. 302). More research is needed to better understand the ways in which technology-based language courses can be most effectively implemented. Additional study of motivation and motivational factors would seem to be clearly warranted to help establish effective online CALL. NOTES 1 Both questionnaires were developed for the Language Online assessment project (see Chenoweth & Murday, 2003). The GBQ was adapted from an original questionnaire that G. R. Tucker developed with his students in the course called “Social and Cognitive Aspects of Bilingualism” a number of years ago. 2 Copies are available from the author. REFERENCES Adair-Hauck, B., Willingham-McLain, L., & Youngs, B. E. (1999). Evaluating the integration of technology and second language learning. CALICO Journal, 17 (2), 269-306.
Page 1 and 2: Eiko Ushida 49 The Role of Students
Page 3 and 4: Eiko Ushida 51 target culture and p
Page 5 and 6: Eiko Ushida 53 4. Language Anxiety
Page 7 and 8: Eiko Ushida 55 Language level focus
Page 9 and 10: Eiko Ushida 57 it difficult to self
Page 11 and 12: Eiko Ushida 59 7. Instrumental Orie
Page 13 and 14: Eiko Ushida 61 Research Question 3
Page 15 and 16: Eiko Ushida 63 Table 2 Correlation
Page 17 and 18: Eiko Ushida 65 for class and that o
Page 19: Eiko Ushida 67 sive listeners when
Page 23 and 24: Eiko Ushida 71 Dörnyei, Z. (2001a)
Page 25 and 26: Eiko Ushida 73 Taylor, C., Jamieson
Page 27 and 28: Eiko Ushida 75 7. Why are you takin
Page 29 and 30: Eiko Ushida 77 10. How does this on

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