Learning and Teaching Arabic as an Additional Language – Phase 3: Systematic Review of Motivation Studies

Motivation is considered a sine qua non for effective language learning. Arabic presents particular opportunities and challenges in terms of L2 learners’ motivation, for linguistic, cultural, sociopolitical and religious reasons.

In recent decades, demand for Arabic as an Additional Language (AL2) has expanded due to globalisation, shifting economic trends and geopolitics, fuelling calls for it to be taught more widely across Europe and America. In our view, a sound understanding of learners’ motivation is essential if AL2 teaching is to expand successfully.

Building on our work in Phases 1 and 2 of this project, we conducted a systematic review of empirical research into motivations towards AL2 learning and teaching, published in English.

Our review identified 63 studies meeting our inclusion criteria. These were conducted across a range of geographic locations, though the United States predominated. Most studies also focussed on adult learners. Within these studies, a variety of motivational frameworks and constructs were adopted, with challenges, alterations and new constructs proposed in the context of AL2 research.

Findings of this review were presented in an interactive format at the second Oxford-QFI Research Forum to an audience of practitioners and researchers from across the globe. Implications for studying AL2 learners’ motivation and for secondary school classrooms were discussed, resulting in a list of practitioners’ principles for sustaining AL2 learner motivation.

Findings of the systematic review are due to be written up as a journal article, and form the basis of the next phase of research, also funded by QFI: an empirical investigation of learners’ motivation and task engagement in secondary school classrooms across the UK.