Multilingual Matters Motivation to Learn Multiple Languages in Japan: A Longitudinal Perspective: 19 (Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching)

This book offers rare insights obtained from a longitudinal study of motivation among exceptionally successful students of English and languages other than English (LOTE), examining the factors involved in becoming multilingual in a non-multilingual environment. Based on sixteen interview sessions, conducted over the course of nine years while the learners progressed from high school to the world of work, this book offers the story of how two learners persist in English/LOTE learning. The study illuminates the long-term processes through which the interviewees develop ideal English/LOTE selves in an environment where multilingualism is not emphasized and where both English and LOTEs can still be described as foreign languages. Educators and researchers will learn from this case which stretches our understanding of motivation beyond the recent theorizing of L2 motivation and the study contributes to the dearth of research in long-term motivational trajectories and LOTE learning motivation, which is particularly scarce in non-European contexts. The book will be of interest not only to readers in Japan but also to those in other contexts as it offers an example of successful learners who go beyond the pragmatic and instrumentalist view of language learning to hold a more holistic view, thus revealing the factors which can sustain LOTE learning, even in foreign language contexts.