A report on an initial study of motivation for learning English: A case study of future information and communication technology professionals

This paper reports the results of a survey regarding motivation for learning English as a foreign language. The subjects are 64 Japanese university students majoring in computer science and engineering. Research on motivation for learning second/foreign languages, first initiated in the 1970s, has been attracting attention especially since the 1990s. The results indicate that these students, whose English proficiency is rather low, have strong instrumental motivation to learn English. More specifically, they are aware of its importance, like English in general and have a strong desire to be fluent in it. In spite of their positive disposition toward English, they do not make any serious efforts to learn it, meaning that they are still at an early stage of the development of motivation. It is also revealed that they suffer from strong anxiety in using it orally. This research suggests the need to reinvestigate learner motivation in the context of World Englishes.