Motivational Strategies, Task Effectiveness and Incidental Acquisition of Second Language Vocabulary

Abstract

Current approaches to L 2 motivation view language learning motivation as situated, dynamic and task-dependent (Pawlak, 2012). Despite the widespread recognition of motivation as a crucial variable in L 2 acquisition, few studies have focused on the effect of motivational involvement of learners in an instructional setting, such as task-based language teaching context, on learning achievements. This study aimed at probing the effect of motivational strategies (Dornyei, 2001b) applied to the pre-task phase of task implementation on short-term and long-term retention and ease of activation of L 2 vocabulary acquired incidentally as a result of engagement with a reading-while listening task. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that motivational strategies had an enhancing effect on both retention and ease of activation of L 2 vocabulary upon the immediate post-test. However, the enhancement was not observed for long-term acquisition since there was a considerable decay of retention and ease of activation upon the delayed post-test. The results confirm the effectiveness of task-specific motivation in improving linguistic achievements. Nevertheless, it is argued that motivational strategies cannot be a single substitution for cognitive strategies.