A Study of ESP Students’ Motivation in English Language Learning

Abstract

Identifying the attitudes of the language learners is one of the influencing factors in acquiring and learning foreign language. Despite of attitudes towards the language, motivational factors are also the key that contribute to effective language learning. Thus, this study aimed at investigating the ESP students’ motivation in learning English as second language. Data were measured using adapted questionnaire from Gardner’s (1985) Attitude and Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) and analysed by using IBM SPSS23 software. The data were analysed by means of frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation. The questionnaire was administered to a group of 40 students who come from English for Specific Purpose class with varied proficiency levels. The main findings exhibited that the ESP students had positive responses on both integrative and instrumental motivation. Nevertheless, the students found to be slightly more integrative motivated to learn English with overall mean score of (M=1.69 SD=0.40) over instrumental motivation with (M=2.04 SD=0.52). This discloses that integrative motivation is a substantial factor among this group of students learning English. Henceforth, various relevant and useful motivational learning implications are recommended for enhancement and improvement of the students’ motivation.