Dr. Ali Roohani & Gholamreza Salehpour
Shahrekord University, Iran
One of the most important affective variables which cannot be ignored in language learning is motivation. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are considered to be one of the most powerful dimensions of the construct of motivation. Moreover, men and women may have different motivations towards foreign language learning. Considering the students’ diverse abilities and interest in English speaking skills, this study aimed at the investigating the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic type of motivation and L2 speaking skill among male and female high school learners of English in Iran. To This end, 49 male and female EFL students from two state high schools in central Iran were selected nonrandomly, and their intrinsic/extrinsic degree of motivation and L2 (English) speaking skill were measured through Wang’s (2017) questionnaire on motivation and IELTS speaking scale, respectively. Also, qualitative data were gathered for triangulation purposes from semi-structured interviews with 10 volunteer participants. The results demonstrated that female students were more intrinsically motivated whereas male students were more extrinsically motivated. Moreover, correlation confidents revealed that as the level of intrinsic motivation in the females and extrinsic motivation in the males increased, their speaking ability ratings increased. The findings can shed more light on the construct of motivation in EFL learning and help EFL teachers in dealing with different EFL learners in their classes.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Third International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 31 January-1February 2019 , Ahwaz.
