What Keeps Them Going? Investigating Ongoing Learners of Japanese in Australian Universities

Abstract

What keeps learners of Japanese going in formal study? In Australia, few continue to an advanced level of the language, despite large numbers of learners. This study found that compared to discontinuers, continuers showed much higher levels of motivation and integrative orientation, and their attitudes towards learning were much more positive. They showed greater autonomous learning, and engaged in more self-initiated activities outside the classroom. In interviews, advanced learners explained the paths that enabled them to continue, yet indicated that university policies affect continuation through timetable and study program restrictions. The predominant reason to continue was the hope to travel to Japan, but an interest in Japanese culture and in Japanese popular culture (J-pop) products (e.g., anime, manga) also was prominent. The enjoyment of J-pop was implicated at least partially in both retention and attrition in Japanese. It provides the motivation to learn Japanese, and in a cyclical fashion, the learning of Japanese itself is consumed so as to further consume J-pop. It may also be the case that once appetites for language consumption are satisfied, some learners could abandon formal study of Japanese at a relatively early stage.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our appreciation to the Australia Research Council and the Japan Foundation for their generous funding for this project. We thank the participants of the study for the data they provided, as well as the anonymous readers and the journal’s editorial team for valuable comments we received throughout the review process.

Notes

¹Lo Bianco, ‘Return of the Good Times’, 331.

²The Japan Foundation, Kaigai Nihongo kyōiku chōsa kekka 2009, 4.

³This project was funded by Australian Research Council Linkage Project (2008–2011) led by C.K. Thomson.

⁴For example, Dickinson, ‘Autonomy and Motivation’.

⁵Ethics approval to conduct surveys and interviews was received from Human Research Ethics Advisory Panel at the University of New South Wales. Project team members collected data from learners whom they did not directly teach.

⁶Holec, Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning, 3.

⁷For example, Cohen, Strategies in Learning.

⁸Kohonen, ‘Experiential Language Learning’.

⁹Ushioda, cited in Benson, ‘Autonomy in Language Teaching’.

¹⁰Little, ‘Autonomy in Language Learning’.

¹¹See Thomson, ‘Junior Teacher Internship’.

¹²Benson, ‘Mapping out the World of Language Learning’.

¹³Stephenson and Kohyama, ‘Tuning Freshmen in to Autonomy’.

¹⁴Gardner, Social Psychology and Second Language Learning, 10.

¹⁵Gardner and Lambert, ‘Motivational Variables’; Gardner, ‘Integrative Motivation’.

¹⁶When referring to motivation generally, the term appears in lower case, but as a component of Gardner's SE model, Motivation and other components in the model e.g. Integrativeness are capitalized.

¹⁷For example, Dörnyei's discussion in The Psychology of the Language Learner, 70.

¹⁸Gardner, Motivation and Second Language Acquisition.

¹⁹Ushioda, ‘L2 Motivation as a Qualitative Construct’.

²⁰Dörnyei, ‘The L2 Motivational Self System’; Gardner, ‘Integrative Motivation and Second Language Acquisition'; Ushioda, ‘Language Learning at University’; Noels, ‘New Orientations in Language’.

²¹MacIntyre et al., ‘Toward the Development of a Scale’.

²²Block, Second Language Identities, 144.

²³Dörnyei and Clement, ‘Motivational Characteristics of Learning’, 419.

²⁴Gardner and Smythe, ‘Second Language Acquisition’; Gardner and Smythe, ‘Motivation and Second-language Acquisition’.

²⁵For example, Clement, Smythe and Gardner, ‘Persistence in Second-language Study’; Gardner, Smythe, et al., ‘Second-language Learning’.

²⁶Options given were: 1^styear tertiary Japanese course (beginners), 2^ndyear tertiary course (late beginners), 3^rdyear tertiary Japanese course (intermediate), and so on.

²⁷LASP 2, ‘An Analysis of Retention Strategies’, 11.

²⁸Ibid., 12.

²⁹The third section, Attitudes towards the Learning Situation, explores classroom issues already represented in the Autonomy Questionnaire, and was omitted due to constraints of survey length.

³⁰Lambert, Culture and Language as Factors, 98.

³¹Ramage, ‘Motivational Factors and Persistence’.

³²Reinders and Lewis, ‘An Evaluative Checklist’.

³³See, for example, Murase, ‘Operationalising the Construct’.

³⁴Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education. Knowles’ autonomous learning stages are: setting a favorable climate for one's own learning; assessing one's own learning needs; transforming needs to learning objectives; selecting learning resources and activities; conducting one's own learning; assessing one's own learning; and planning future learning.

³⁵Oxford, Language Learning Strategies. Oxford's learning strategies are: memory; cognitive; compensation; affective; and social strategies.

³⁶For example, Hyland, ‘Learning Autonomously’.

³⁷Such as Cajkler and Thornton, ‘Language Learner Perceptions’; Chan, ‘Autonomous Language Learning’.

³⁸Dörnyei, ‘The L2 Motivational Self System'.

³⁹ The Current State of Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean Language Education, 2.

⁴⁰A similar phenomenon, known as K-pop, is developing in Korea, but its role in individual commitment to the study of Korean lies outside the scope of this study.

⁴¹Befu, ‘Globalization Theory from the Bottom Up’.

⁴²Thomson, ‘Understanding Australian Learners of Japanese’.

⁴³Stevens, ‘You Are What You Buy’.

⁴⁴Kubota, ‘Critical Teaching of Japanese Culture’.

⁴⁵Aoki, ‘Toward Multilayered Strength’.

⁴⁶Dörnyei, The Psychology of the Language Learner, 93–108.

⁴⁷Cf. Block, Second Language Identities.

⁴⁸Schmidt, ‘The Role of Consciousness.’