D

US-China Foreign Language, ISSN 1539-8080

February 2012, Vol. 10, No. 2, 921-932

DAVID

PUBLISHING

Student Motivation for Learning Chinese as a Second Language

in Hong Kong International Secondary Schools
Bennan Zhang
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Studying an L2 (second language) has been one of the core curricular designs of the education system among
international secondary schools in Hong Kong for a long time. Although French and Spanish remain among the
most popular second languages for students, it is notable that Chinese (Mandarin) has now become more and more
popular at these international schools since several years ago. The investigation reported in this paper looks at the
motivational orientations behind students who are studying Chinese as an L2 with regards to school environment,
socio-cultural impact, and home factors that influence on the students motivation in the context of Hong Kong. A
total of 179 students from three junior secondary school years participated in the investigation. The results have
confirmed the existence of the four traditional motivational variables of integrativeness, instrumentality, linguistic
self-confidence, and classroom environment in the Hong Kong context. In addition, this study has also evidenced
that students from across Years 7, 8, and 9 have different motivations for learning Chinese. While integrativeness
was found to be the most important motivation for the Year 7 students, instrumentality served as the most important
motivation for the Year 9 students. Motivation for the Year 8 students was more complicated and the factor of
classroom environment plays a vital role in keeping students continuing on their Chinese study. All these findings
were supported by the questionnaires and group interviews that the students completed during the investigation.
This study serves as significant information for the understanding of the nature and process of learning Chinese as
an L2 and the choice of pedagogical conditions at international secondary schools in Hong Kong.
Keywords: L2 (second language) motivation, learning Chinese as an L2, integrativeness, instrumentality,
classroom environment

Introduction
Studying an L2 (second language) at school has been one of the core curricular designs of the education
system among international secondary schools in Hong Kong for a long time. Regardless of whether it is French,
Spanish, Japanese, or Chinese, students studying in these international schools have to choose at least one L2 to
study in addition to English, which serves as the school language and the medium of instruction and learning
(English Schools Foundation (ESF), 2009). Although French and Spanish remain among the most popular L2s
for students, it is notable that Chinese (Mandarin) has now become more and more popular at these international
schools since several years ago. The ESF, the largest international school group in Hong Kong with more than 17
Bennan Zhang, Dr./Ph.D., Ed.D, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.

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STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

international primary and secondary schools, for example, now pays great attention to their Chinese courses. Its
aim, through the provision of the Chinese courses, is to enable all students to reach a basic level of Chinese in a
business situation after completing secondary education (ESF, 2009, p. 6).
Despite the increasing popularity, however, very little research has been done to investigate the motivation
of the students who are engaged in studying Chinese as an L2. This study, Student Motivation for Learning
Chinese as a Second Language in Hong Kong International Secondary Schools, intends to look at the
motivational orientations behind students who are studying Chinese as an L2 with regards to school environment,
socio-cultural impact, and home factors that influence the students motivation. This study, therefore, will serve
as significant information for the understanding of the nature and process of learning Chinese as an L2 and the
choice of pedagogical conditions at international schools in Hong Kong.

Literature on Motivation
Researching the motivation for L2 learning has had a long history. Before giving an overview of the
variables affecting motivational orientations, the meaning of motivation to L2 learning should be stated. It is
true that, since motivation as a psychological behavior of human beings is highly complex, coming to a good
definition is no easy task. People use the term motivation widely in a variety of everyday and professional
contexts without problems with its meaning, but, when it comes to describe precisely what this term might be,
opinions diversify at an alarming rate. In a general sense with regard to L2 motivation, however, the definition of
Drnyei and Ott (1998) can be taken as the starting point for our thinking when they suggest that:
Motivation can be defined as the dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs,
coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are
selected, prioritized, operationalised and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out. (p. 65)

To elaborate on the definition, Drnyei (2005) later pointed out that motivation is the driving force to
sustain the long and often tedious learning process (p. 65). According to Gardner (1985, p. 10), ones motivation
to L2 learning composes of three elements: The first element is the effort that one performs in learning an L2, the
second element is ones wish to learn an L2, and the third element is the sense of achievement in the process of
learning an L2. Their ideas on the concept of L2 motivation can shed light on the current study.
Researchers have established a number of theories on L2 language learners such as the socio-psychological
theory (Gardner, 1968, 1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993) and the self-determination
theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). Related to the theories, mostly through conducting empirical studies on
motivation, a number of orientations or types of L2 motivation were suggested by previous research.
Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972), from a social psychological viewpoint, identified two major types of
orientationsthe integrative orientation and the instrumental orientationwhich were later confirmed by many
researchers. The integrativeness orientation, according to Drnyei (2003), Ellis (2008), and Gardner (1985),
refers to the eagerness of the learner to interact with, to assimilate with, to understand and to accept the L2
community. The instrumentality orientation refers to the possible and precise benefits achieved from knowing
another language, such as having a higher opportunity of employment and being able to demand a higher salary
(Drnyei, 1994; Ellis, 2008).

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Although the combination of integrativeness and instrumentality had been the most popular in explaining the
motivations in L2 learning among a lot of the L2 acquisition studies for the past few decades, there has been some
shortcomings. Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) once stated that as motivation is dynamic, The old characterization
of motivation in terms of integrative vs. instrumental orientation is too static and restricted (p. 4). Therefore, other
variables and theories could be introduced in order to meet the dynamic aspects of motivational orientations.
Another well-known distinction in the motivation comes from self-determination theory with two major
types of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). According to the summery of Drnyei
(2001, p. 27), the first type of motivation deals with behavior performed for its own sake in order to experience
pleasure and satisfaction, such as the joy of doing a particular activity or satisfying ones curiosity. The second
involves performing a behavior as a means to an end, that is, to receive some extrinsic reward, such as receiving
good grades or avoiding punishment.
Extrinsic motivation has traditionally been seen as something that can undermine intrinsic motivation.
Several studies have confirmed that students will lose their natural intrinsic interest in an activity if they have to
do it to meet some extrinsic requirement. Other studies, however, did not find the expected negative relationship
between the two types of motivation. Thus, various types of motivations exist and depending on circumstances,
extrinsic rewards can be combined with, or can even lead to, intrinsic motivation (Drnyei, 2001, pp. 28-29).
In addition to studying the types of motivation, which have been briefly reviewed above, a number of
researchers focused on factors that affect students motivation for L2 study. Among them, the learners L2
learning experience, situation of the classroom, and parental influence were found to be significant in shaping
students L2 motivation.
The learning experience, according to Drnyei (2009), is related to the immediate learning environment
and experience (e.g., the impact of the teacher, the curriculum, the peer group, the experience of success) (p. 29).
This is also related to the attribution theory in which Drnyei (2003) suggested that It (attribution theory)
manages to link peoples past experience with their future achievement efforts by introducing causal attributions
as the mediating link (p. 8). In other words, positive learning experiences, both immediate and past learning
experiences, will enhance the learners motivation, whereas negative learning experiences will de-motivate the
learners to learn the language. This is supported by a number of researchers. For example, Barraclough,
Christophel, and McCroskey (1988) concluded their cross-cultural investigation that Previous research
indicated people who experience high levels of fear or anxiety regarding communication often avoid and
withdraw from communication (p. 188). Ryan and Deci (2000) found influences of positive experiences
associated with exercising and extending ones capacities (p. 56). Oxford and Shearin (1994, p. 15) stated that
the experience of success leads to positive motivation to progress in L2 learning.
The situation of the classroom that the students are in while learning the L2 was found to play an important
role in shaping students motivation. This is supported by Weiner (1979) for example, in which he argued that
classrooms are environments for the satisfaction of motivation other than achievement (p. 3). According to
Drnyei (1994, p. 277), there are three types of motivational components which are related to learning situations
that include (1) the course-specific motivational components, (2) the teacher-specific motivational components,
and (3) the group-cohesion motivational components. The course-specific motivational components involve the

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STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

syllabus, teaching methods, learning tasks, and teaching materials; whereas the teacher-specific motivational
components involves the teachers relationships with the students, the teachers personality, teaching styles, and
feedbacks; and, finally, the group-cohesion motivational components involve the interaction within the learning
groups. These motivational components described by Drnyei (1994) were also supported by other researchers,
such as Pintrich, Roeser, and Groot (1994).
Parental influence is another factor found to be important in shaping students L2 motivation. Through close
family relationships, children learn about parental values, goals, attitudes, and motivations. Baker (1992, p. 109)
argued that parental language attitudes influence childrens language attitudes, and that although childrens
attitudes tend to match or be similar to those of their parents, this does not imply that one causes the other.
Research on parental attitudes toward languages has also revealed differences by language. For example, after
comparing 65 parents from four language groups at five language school sites in the US, Yan (2003) found that
the majority (68%) of the Chinese parents believed it very important or important to maintain Chinese language
learning and use for their children for the benefit of academic performance in regular English-language schools,
which is a different attitude from parents in the other language groups. Such home language attitude and use is
likely to have considerable impact on the language attitudes of the children.
The concepts or theories on L2 motivation reviewed above are used by this study to examine the motivation
of international secondary school students in Hong Kong on learning Chinese (Mandarin) as an L2.

Methodology
The main data were collected in May 2010. Students of the Chinese classes of Years 7, 8, and 9 from two
international secondary schools in Hong Kong were chosen. A total of 179 students participated in the research,
of which there were 57 Year 7 students, 67 Year 8 students, and 52 Year 9 students, and three students with
missing school year data. Of these students who participated in the study, 86 were male students, 90 were female
students, and three students with missing gender data. About half of the students use English at home45.1% of
them communicated with their mothers in English, while 54.8% communicated with their fathers in English.
Of the two chosen international schools, one is a member of the English Schools Foundation (School A) and
the other school is a private international school (School B). School A follows the National Curriculum of
England and Wales and most the students will have to sit for the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary
Education) or the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) in Year 11. As for the
private international school, School B, it follows the IB (International Baccalaureate). The students in School B
will have to sit for the examination offered by the IB organization in Year 11.
The main instruments used in this study consisted of questionnaire and group interview. The questionnaire that
was distributed to the participating students consisted of three parts. Part 1 consisted of 48 close-ended statements
related to the reasons why the students were studying Chinese as an L2. The students were asked to circle the degree
of their agreement with the statement by the use of a 6-point Likert scale. Part 2 of the questionnaire consisted of
two open-ended questions in which the students were asked to write down any comments about their Chinese
lessons and rank the languages that they would like to study in the coming school year. Part 3 of the questionnaire
consisted of questions asking about the students background information including the school year of the student,
the gender of the student, birthplace, birth date, and languages spoken with parents at home.

STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

925

Apart from collecting information through the questionnaire, group interviews were also conducted in order
to obtain further and in-depth information from the students in regards to their motivation in learning Chinese.
Thirty students or 17% of the students who have done the questionnaire were asked to participate in the
interviews voluntarily. The questions that were asked in the interviews were set in a semi-structured format with
open-ended questions.
The data collected from the schools were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results obtained
from the quantitative methods were mainly from responses to the questionnaire and were processed with the
statistical software SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) Version 18. The results obtained from the
qualitative methods were mainly from transcriptions of the interviews. The results of these analyses will be
discussed in the following section.

Findings and Discussion

Four Motivational Variables Confirmed
Each student was asked to circle the degree of agreement towards the 48 statements listed in Part 1 of the
questionnaire ranking from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The data results show that the average response to
the statements listed in the questionnaire Part 1 by the Year 7 students is between 4.68 and 2.95; the average
response to the statements by the Year 8 students is between 4.99 and 2.61; the average response by the Year 9
students is between 5.21 and 3.19.
By factor analyses, students responses to the 48 statements were categorized into a few variable groups.
There are four variable groups motivating the students to study Chinese as an L2. Using similar labels as the
previous studies reviewed above, the four variable groups can be seen as: (1) integrativeness, which includes
factors such as students image of Chinese people, how the people around the students affect the motivation of the
students to study Chinese as an L2, and how interested the students are to learning more about China and Chinese
people and how much they like the Chinese language itself, etc.; (2) instrumentality, which includes factors such
as how useful the students think the Chinese language is and how interested the students are in using the Chinese
that they have learnt to understand the media, etc.; (3) linguistic self-confidence, which includes factors such as the
students confidence in speaking Chinese in classrooms or with Chinese native speakers, and the level of difficulty
felt by the students towards their Chinese lessons, etc.; and (4) classroom environment, which includes factors
such as whether the Chinese classes are interesting and how much the students like their Chinese classes, etc.
Table 1 shows the mean score of each variable group. The mean score is produced by calculating the average
of the mean values of the statements in each variable group as suggested by the factor analysis.
Table 1
Questions Grouped Into Their Variable Groups by Each School Year
Variable group

Mean for Year 7

Mean for Year 8

Mean for Year 9

Integrativeness

3.84

3.36

3.2

Instrumentality

3.25

3.8

4.09

Linguistic self-confidence

3.22

3.2

3.33

Classroom environment

3.25

3.5

3.56

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STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

From Table 1, one can conclude that integrativeness plays the most important role in motivating the Year 7

students to study Chinese as an L2; however, for the Year 9 students integrativeness is of the least importance.
The reason for Year 7 students to have the greatest integrativeness could be because of the fact that these students
do not yet have the need to sit for examinations like the Year 9 students do. Therefore, being free from the
pressure and examinations, according to Drnyei (2003), Ellis (2008), and Gardner (1985), the Year 7 students
would be able to develop their integrativeness and hence develop their appreciation of the Chinese culture,
language, and community. At the same time, these students would be able to develop both their interests in China
as a nation and their integrative motivation in learning the Chinese language. Additionally, a high level of
integrative motivation could also imply that the students have high level of intrinsic motivation. This can be
interpreted from the fact that the Year 7 students enjoying their process of learning the Chinese language
(Drnyei, 2001) which is also reflected in the comments written down by the students about their classes.
On the other hand, the reason why Year 9 students have the least integrativeness in studying Chinese as an
L2 can be due to the fact that they are under the pressure and need to sit for Chinese examinations in the near
future. Such pressure and need would inevitably have caused these students to lose interest in the Chinese
language and the Chinese community. However, such pressure and need would have increased the Year 9
students instrumentality motivation in learning Chinese as an L2 which implies that these students are studying
Chinese in order to tackle the future examinations that they are required to sit for. Additionally, being the oldest
of all the three groups in the study, these students will start considering about the usefulness of the language for
their future in aspects of jobs and further education. They will start to consider whether learning the language
would allow them to demand higher salary and higher opportunity of employment (Drnyei, 1994; Ellis, 2008).
Together, both the lower integrative motivation and higher instrumental motivation showed that the Year 9
students have a high level of extrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). This is because the Year 9 students are
engaging in activities that would help them receive external rewards, such as higher marks for examinations and
better job prospects for the future (Drnyei, 2001). For the Year 8 students, based on the information of Table 1,
they seem to have a more balanced motivation between integrativeness and instrumentality.
Being different from integrativeness and instrumentality, linguistic self-confidence, and classroom
environment were found to be two factors influencing or supporting students motivation of L2 study. Though
linguistic self-confidence is confirmed as one of the two major motivational factors for all years students, the
mean is lowest for all students as compared with other motivational variables. This implies that students do not
have a high level of linguistic self-confidence. This is also evidenced by the data collected in the interview. When
the students were asked whether they actually speak Chinese outside class, they would say that they did not have
much confidence in doing so. The following are some of the responses from the students when they were asked:
Do you think you can speak Chinese with Chinese speakers with confidence?.
Interviewer: /1.92.24/ yep sure and do you think you can speak Chinese with Chinese speakers with confidence?
Girl 2: /1.92.25/ no
Girl 1: /1.92.26/ um I can do like the basics
Interviewer: /2.71.41/ Alright well those are very good reasons so do you think you can speak Chinese with
Chinese speakers with confidence?
Girl 1: /2.71.44/ like I can speak it in front of my class but not in front of Chinese people.

STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

927

Students also do not have enough confidence to speak Chinese with their friends outside class:
Interviewer: /1.92.65/ ok if it becomes easier ok and do you usually speak Chinese with ah... outside class?
Like with your friends
Girl 1: /1.92.66/ no
Interviewer: /1.92.67/ not even for fun?
Girl 2: /1.92.68/ sometimes for fun
Interviewer: /1.92.69/ alright
Girl 2: /1.92.70/ and like my mum she she kind of can speak Chinese because she has been learning for a long
time so sometimes she like
Interviewer: /1.92.71/ oh
Girl 1: /1.92.72/ and my mum is learning Chinese sosometimes we help each other study.
Interviewer: /1.92.73/ oh thats really good. you guys have support and stuff like that
Girl 1: /1.92.74/ yep

Comparatively, the mean score of Year 9 students for linguistic self-confidence is slightly higher than those
of Year 7 and 8 students. The difference would imply that Year 9 students have a higher linguistic self-confidence
and lower anxiety level when they were trying to speak in Chinese. This could be a result of the length of time
that these students have studied Chinese, because the Year 9 students are the ones who have studied the language
longest as compared to the other two school year groups.
Another important variable group of motivational factors confirmed is classroom environment. From the
same table, it is seen that classroom environment affected the motivation of Year 7 students the least and Year 9
students the most. This situation can be due to the fact that Year 7 students have a high integrative motivation,
thus external factors such as classroom environment did not cause much effect on their learning. On the contrary,
however, Year 9 students integrative motivation is not as high as the Year 7 students; hence, the Year 9 students
would need external factors such as an interesting and vibrant classroom environment to motivate them to
continue their study of the language.
Chinese Is the First Choice for All Year Students Excluding English
In Part 2 of the questionnaire, students were asked to write down three languages, excluding English, which
they would like to study in their future years of education, putting the most desired one in the first place. A total of
31 different languages were written down by the students, but the result of the responses was that Chinese is the
most popular of all the 31 recorded languages followed by Spanish and French. Table 2 shows the three most
desired language to be studied.
Table 2
The Three Languages That the Students Would Like to Study in Order of Desire (Excluding English)
First

Percentage (%)

Second

Percentage (%)

Third

Percentage (%)

Year 7

Chinese

29.8

French

35.1

Spanish

17.5

Year 8

Chinese

41.8

Spanish

35.8

French

22.4

Year 9

Chinese

53.8

French

26.9

Spanish/French

13.5

From Table 2, one can conclude that the Chinese language is the most desired L2 for all the students in Years
7, 8, and 9 in their future years of education. The students who chose Chinese as their first choice language to
learn increased yearly from Year 7 (at 29.8%) to Year 8 (at 41.8%) to Year 9 (at 53.8%). This implies that the

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STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

Chinese language is viewed as a very important language to be learnt among all the students who participated in
the study.
Results from the interview also support the finding above. According to the responses of all the students who
were interviewed, when asked why they would like to study Chinese, the most significant reason given is that
they realize the usefulness of the Chinese language. The majority of the students think that Chinese nowadays has
become one of the main languages in the world and thus it would be useful to know. Some of the students will go
further to say that if they knew Chinese, it would be easier for them to go and do business with the Chinese in the
future. This could be related to the instrumentality of the Chinese language. As Chinese is now becoming more
and more useful and important for ones future education and job opportunities, students may have come to know
this fact. Therefore, realizing how important this language is now, they would have become more motivated to
learn Chinese as an L2 (Drnyei, 1994; Ellis, 2008).
However, at the same time, this realization of the usefulness of the Chinese language could also be
influenced by the students parents and it was their parents who asked them to learn Chinese. The responses of the
Year 7 and 8 students below may suggest this:
Interviewer: /2.72.1/ ok so why did you want to do Chinese in the first place?
Girl 1: /2.72.2/ cos my parents said I have to
Boy 1: /2.81.2/ er cos my parents think it will be good and I can get a good job and become rich

Parents support and influence can be one of the most important formations of a students motivation to learn
an L2. According to Gardner (1985), parents who allow their children to enroll in a certain L2 class, in this case
Chinese, would imply that these parents have a positive image for Chinese, and in turn they would encourage their
children to study Chinese. With parents encouragement, it would be found that, according to Gardners (1985)
study, the students will become more motivated in learning the language that their parents encourage. Drnyei
(2009) further argued that parental encouragement originates from how important and necessary the language is
viewed by the parents. In other words, the parents who encourage and support their children to study Chinese
understand and agree that Chinese is a language which will aid their children in having better prospects in their
future education and career development, and the students responses in turn reflect this parental sentiment.
It deserves attention that a few students who had a Chinese background said that it would be a good idea to
learn the language because they were born Chinese. Others went further to say that since one of their parents was
Chinese or they were already fluent in Chinese, it was an easier option to learn Chinese. The following are some
responses from these students.
Boy 2: /2.92.6/ well my mum is Chinese
Interviewer: /2.92.7/ alright so thats fine
Boy 2: /2.92.8/ ah no and its easier than any other subject cos I can speak it f fluently
Girl 2: /2.72.10/ um cos I am like born Chinese, and my parents persuaded me to do cos its useful

Pedagogy Should Be Emphasized to Motivate Students Continual Study

The second question in Part 2 was that students were also asked to write down some comments about their
Chinese classes. According to the statistics, 31.6% of Year 7 students, 53.7% of Year 8 students, and 53.8 % of
Year 9 students wrote some comments on their Chinese classes at school. The comments that the students wrote

STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

929

consisted of both negative and positive comments.

All the comments were grouped by nature and frequency, and the findings show that the most frequent factor
is Class atmosphere, which can be seen from Table 3.
Table 3
Students Comments on Their Chinese Class Atmosphere
School year
Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Negative response (frequency %)

(7.01%)
e.g.: -want more games and activities, boring

Positive response (frequency %)

(33.33%)
fun, resourceful, inquisitive, good atmosphere, friendly,
interesting, helpful, enjoyable

(38.81%)
not interesting/boring, repetitive, messy, hard to (19.40%)
concentrate, loud, stressing out, annoying people, need to creative, productive, interesting, relaxing, fun
be more relaxed, distracting
(23.08%)
(38.46%)
no one pays attention, people do not try, people are rude,
interesting, vibrant, informative, fun, friendly, enjoyable,
bad class etiquette, slow, laid back, distracting, people are
calm, funny, good
disrespectful, disturbed, hate, boring, too fast

Although the students do understand the usefulness of the Chinese language, the majority of the interviewed
students made a number of complaints about the way how Chinese is being taught at school. The most common
complaint from the students are about the frequency of dictations that are given to the students from the Chinese
teachers and the fact that there is no fun in class. The following are some of the responses:
Boy 2: /2.92.20/ the class is just boring.
Interviewer: /2.92.21/ boring? So what do teachers do? Like how do they teach you?
Boy 2: /2.92.22/ they like give you dictations and just write stuff on the board
Boy 1: /2.92.23/ and they read, and they read from the book the textbook and then like say what this word means and
we just read passages and say copy this out.
Boy 2: /2.92.24/ yeah they say like you cant talk you can only just be quiet.

With regards to the proficiency of the students Chinese, the majority of the students responded that they
found writing Chinese the most difficult part of all, then they will continue to say that they think that they can and
should improve on speaking, reading, and listening aspects of the language. A lot of the students said that the way
that Chinese is being taught at school is not helping them to improve their proficiency and also de-motivating
them to learn the Chinese language. The following are some of the responses of the interviewed students.
Interviewer: /2.71.78/ alright and so well what do you think is the most difficult part for learning Chinese?
Girl 1: /2.71.79/ writing
Interviewer: /2.71.80/ writing?
Girl 2: /2.71.81/ yeah
Girl 1: /2.71.82/ cos there is so much work in writing in speaking we like we started since we were very young so
its easy but then for writing there are so many like like
Girl 2: /2.71.83/ characters

Indeed, in this case of the interviewed student, the frequency of dictation and atmosphere of the classes have
led the students lose their interest in learning the language and their anticipation of the classes at school. This is
supported by Wen (1997), in which he suggested that students of the Chinese language will easily become
frustrated by the difficulty of the Chinese writing and this thus creates motivational barriers.

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STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

When the students were asked what would make them look forward to their classes, the majority of the

students will reply if there were more fun in class. The following are excerpts from the interviews:
Interviewer: /1.81.136/ alright. thats very interesting ok. so do you actually want to have your classes? Are
you looking forward to your classes?
Boy 1: /1.81.137/ Chinese?
Interviewer: /1.81.138/ yeah Chinese
Boy 1: /1.81.139/ yeah if its fun

As a follow up to this question, the students were asked what they would do to make the clases more fun if
they were the teachers. The majority of students will then reply that they would include more games and make
use of movies and flashcards in the class to help the students learn the language, and some students will also say
that they will give out more projects to the students to do to make the classes more fun. This can be seen from
the interview excerpts below:
Boy 2: /2.92.192/ more Chinese games
Interviewer: /2.92.193/ ok
Boy 1: /2.92.194/ Chinese hangman
Interviewer: /2.92.197/ ok
Boy 2: /2.92.198/ yeah I mean just like make it more fun!
Interviewer: /2.92.199/ will you do movies?
Boy 2: /2.92.200/ like like just easy times like if students are sleeping in the class
Boy 1: /2.92.201/ yeah movies!
Boy 2: /2.92.202/ yeah movies...Movies are great!
Boy 1: /2.92.203/ yeah cos like all the Chinese Harry Potter
Boy 2: /2.92.204/ thats really good

Looking more closely at Table 3, one can see that the Years 7 and 9 students seem more comfortable with their
classes than the Year 8 students. Referring to the discussion above, one can suppose that, as the Year 7 students have
a higher integrative motivation in learning the Chinese language and less pressure of examination, they seem to be
enjoying their Chinese classes more. Despite that the fact the students in Year 9 have pressure from completing
examinations and the lower integrative motivation, the Year 9 students are still enjoying their Chinese classes with
much positive comments. This could be due to the pedagogical conditions that the teachers of the schools are using,
and as well as students previous longer learning experiences. MacIntyre, Drnyei, Clment, and Noels (1998)
pointed out that positive experiences could be developed by the development of self-confidence, which is based on
a lack of anxiety combined with a sufficient level of communicative competence, arising from a series of reasonably
pleasant L2 experiences (p. 548). Since Year 9 students had more learning experience and stronger self-confidence
on this language learning, they would find it easier with their classes.
Year 8 students commented their classes more negatively than Year 7 and Year 9 students did, e.g., not
interesting/ boring, repetitive, messy, hard to concentrate, loud, stressing out, annoying people,
need to be more relaxed, and distracting. The reason for that might be seen from their comments on the
assignments: too much dictation, too much homework, and not enough time to study. In other words, the
students felt that Chinese class was too hard/too difficult:
Boy 1 & 2: /1.81.60/ Cos its really hard.
B2: /1.81.61/ its very hard.

STUDENT MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING CHINESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

931

Interviewer: /1.81.62/ hard?

Boy 1: /1.81.63/ there is no fun
Boy 1: /1.81.64/ its mostly like sit there write write write

Indeed, according to Wen (1997), when the tasks that the students are given exceed the capability level of
the students, the students will be de-motivated in learning the language.
Related to this, the investigation also revealed a fact that the Year 8 students were the ones who have paid
the most effort on their Chinese study. We know from the interview, a lot of parents of Year 8 students provide
tutors for their children to help them with the Chinese homework. This suggests that the parents of these students
are more supportive in the fact that their children are learning Chinese at school. The following are the responses
from the students of Year 8 in interview:
Boy 2: /2.81.689/ yeah we both get tutoring together
Interviewer: /2.81.70/ oh ok is it a private a tutor?
Boy 2: /2.81.71/ yah.
Boy 1: /2.81.72/ yah.
Interviewer: /2.81.73/ ok. what do they do? Do they help you with homework? Dictations and stuff like that?
Boy 1: /2.81.74/ yeah
Boy 2: /2.81.75/yah er not really cos we moved up a set and so we needed to catch up so our teachers sort of
helps us revise what we have done.

This implies that the Year 8 students, who have a more balanced motivation between integrativeness and
instrumentality, are putting in extra time and effort in their learning of the Chinese language.

Conclusions
The study results presented in this paper have shown the major motivational orientations of the international
secondary schools students to learn Chinese as an L2 in the context of Hong Kong. From the discussions above
on the variables confirmed by the present study, one could conclude that a number of factors would play
important roles in shaping the motivation of students in choosing and continuing their learning of Chinese as an
L2. These factors widely cover the teaching and learning aspects, including students interest in China as a nation,
awareness of the usefulness of the Chinese language, linguistic self-confidence, learning experience, the effort
involved, teachers strategies and classroom environment, and parental influence and support, etc.
From what has been observed from the questionnaires and interviews, it is found that students from across
Years 7, 8, and 9 have different motivations to study Chinese. While integrativeness is the most important
motivation for the Year 7 students, instrumentality is the most important motivation for the Year 9 students. The
results from the interviews with the students show that linguistic self-confidence and classroom atmosphere are
two importent factors that affect students motivation in their learning of Chinese as an L2.
It is also noticeable that the negative comments from Year 8 students on their Chinese class environment
indicate that the way the language is taught in the classroom serves as a vital factor in motivating or
de-motivating the students in their learning of the language.

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