The status of English as an International Language charges ESL and EFL learners with great challenges for learning, penetrating into our daily lives including English lectures and internet surfing as well as diplomacy or trade between nations. Especia...
The status of English as an International Language charges ESL and EFL learners with great challenges for learning, penetrating into our daily lives including English lectures and internet surfing as well as diplomacy or trade between nations. Especially in Korea, EFL context where opportunities for learning English and supporting policies are not enough, formal institutions up to high school are the main passages for intensive English learning and most students are learning English under the heavy pressure of entering superior universities. In this context, high school learners are facing extreme psychological stress. In most high school reading classrooms, teachers provide translation models with the entire class students, which results in the decrease of motivation and the ignorance of individuality, causing the question of learning effect.
Therefore, it is important to motivate learners and plan lessons toward individual learners for successful language learning. Self-Determination Theory which overcomes the traditional dichotomy of motivation, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, emphasizes the dynamics of motivation ranging from amotivation to intrinsic motivation and suggests autonomy, competence, and relativeness for intrinsic motivation. Also, the 7th curriculum pursues student-centered English education reflecting individual variations. Eventually, increasing intrinsic motivation and respecting individual variations are the two key words for English education.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of SDT reading class in terms of motivation change and reading proficiency and to figure out the relationship between personality types (using MBTI) and particular motivation-stimulating lessons used in three different experimental groups. For this study, 131 high school students of grade 3 were sampled and 15 classes were conducted. Three experimental groups were taught through the autonomy-oriented lesson, the competence-oriented lesson, and the relativeness-oriented lesson respectively, and control group was given the typical lecture-type lesson focusing on teacher's translation and students' listening or taking notes.
The main results are as follows. Firstly, three experimental groups exceeded the control group in reading grade, which means autonomy, competence and relativeness are the effect ways for reading proficiency.
Secondly, in three experimental groups, integrative and intrinsic motivation are increased and amotivation and extrinsic motivation are decreased. In contrast, in the control group, statistical significance was not identified in motivation change though there is the slight increase in amotivation and extrinsic motivation and the decrease in integrative and intrinsic motivation. Therefore, it was concluded that autonomy, competence and relativeness are the primary principles to stimulate intrinsic motivation.
Thirdly, in autonomy-oriented class, iNtuition and Perceiving type learners excelled Sensing and Judging type learners in reading proficiency, which means autonomy-oriented class appeals for N and P type learners. Also, in competence-oriented class, Thinking and Judging type learners excelled Feeling and Perceiving type learners in reading proficiency, which means competence-oriented class appeals for T and J type learners. Lastly, in relativeness-oriented class, Extroversion and Feeling type learners excelled Introversion and Thinking type learners in reading proficiency, which means relativeness-oriented class appeals for E and F type learners.
Proceeding from what has been studied above, it should be concluded that autonomy, competence, and relativeness have positive effects on raising intrinsic motivation and reading proficiency. In addition, it is also proved that each learner's own personality type is the essential factor to be regarded as a vehicle mediating between leaning process and learning result. Consequently, the main results of this study suggest the necessity of designing intrinsic motivating reading lessons based on SDT theory and emphasizes the importance of considering learners' individual variations.