Motivation
plays a very important role in enhancing the students’ pronunciation learning. Consequently,
the researcher’s argument is that motivation is necessary for one to learn and
acquire a second or foreign language because most successful learners of a
second language are motivated to do so. Hence, this research work highlights
the role motivation plays in the acquisition of phonetic sounds among the Ebonyi State
University students. The
researcher examines the concept of motivation, explains some theories of
motivation as it relates to language learning, the types of motivation —
intrinsic, extrinsic, integrative and instrumental. The study analyzed the data
gotten through the use of a 7 – item questionnaire administered to supposedly
120 students but recovered 113 copies from the students in the Department of
Linguistics and Literary Studies, Ebonyi
State University,
Abakaliki. The results from the findings revealed that the use of reward,
employment of competent phonetic lecturer(s), and well structured and
functional phonetic laboratory enhance the students’ pronunciation learning. It
was also discovered that the students’ L1 hinders the acquisition of
phonetic sounds, and that pronunciation learning has future benefit.
TITLE. i
CERTIFICATION. ii
DEDICATION. iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iv
Abstract vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS. viii
CHAPTER ONE. 9
INTRODUCTION. 9
1.1 BACKGROUND
TO THE STUDY. 10
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM. 14
1.3 OBJECTIVES
OF THE STUDY. 14
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY. 15
1.5 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS. 15
1.6 SCOPE
AND DELIMITATION. 15
CHAPTER TWO. 16
LITERATURE REVIEW.. 16
2.1 THEORETICAL
REVIEW.. 16
2.1.1 The
Concept of Motivation. 16
2.1.3 Theories
of Motivation. 24
2.1.4 Motivating
Students 26
2.1.5 Strategies
for Motivating Students 27
2.2 EMPIRICAL
REVIEW.. 30
2.3 SUMMARY
OF REVIEWS. 37
CHAPTER THREE. 39
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. 39
3.1 AREA
OF STUDY. 39
3.2 POPULATION
OF THE STUDY. 39
3.3 SAMPLING
TECHNIQUE. 39
3.4 SAMPLING
SIZE. 39
3.5 RESEARCH
INSTRUMENT. 40
3.6 METHOD
OF DATA COLLECTION. 40
3.7 METHOD
OF DATA ANALYSIS. 40
CHAPTER FOUR. 41
ANALYSIS OF DATA. 41
CHAPTER FIVE. 45
FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUMMARY. 45
5.1 FINDINGS. 45
5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS. 46
5.3 SUMMARY
OF THE STUDY. 47
REFERENCES. 49
Language is a very important phenomenon in the life of every individual.
On daily basis, we communicate our ideas, feelings, desires, likes, dislikes,
etc to people in community through language (spoken, written or signed).
O’Grady (2011:1) highlights and affirms the usefulness of language by
saying:
Language is at the heart of all things human. We use it when we are
taking, thinking, reading, writing and listening. It is part of the social
structure of our communities, it forges the emotional bond between parent and a
child; it is the vehicle for literature and poetry. Language is not just a part
of us; language defines us.
From the foregoing, it is important to state categorically, that language
encompasses all human activities. It is an indispensable tool used by members
of a speech community to communicate their thoughts to one another.
Nnamdi-Eruchalu (2012:1) rightly states that man cannot relate with the world
around him without language.
Accordingly, Edward Sapir (1921:8) in Lyons (2009:3) stresses “that language is
purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and
desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols”. This implies that every
normal human being is endowed with the innate ability to acquire language. This
natural (innate) ability according to Noam Chomsky (1975) quoted in Agbedo
(2009:20), and Nnamdi (2012:19) is called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD).
Similarly, Oates (1972:127) cited in Ajisafe (2009:1) notes the importance of
language and avers that “the acquisition of the ability to use language is one
of the most impressive pieces of learning that an individual achieves in the
course of his life”.
Issues bothering on language have attracted the attention of scholars
from disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, rhetoric,
literary criticism, etc. Among these disciplines, we will limit our discussion
in this work to linguistics. Nnamdi-Eruchalu (2012:8) opines that linguistics
is interested in the historical study of written language, and the study of
spoken language and its description as it is at a given point in time. This
aspect of linguistics is referred to as “historical linguistics”. This
discipline (linguistics) covers areas such as phonetics, phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (otherwise known as micro linguistics), and
the macro linguistics which include applied linguistics, sociolinguistics,
historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, comparative
linguistics, etc. Among these, we shall limit our discussion in this research
to an aspect of the micro linguistics — “phonetics”.
This research work is set to harness the role of motivation in the
acquisition of phonetic sounds — a case study of the Ebonyi State University
Students, Abakaliki. Ebonyi State,
Nigeria.
Ajisafe (2009:2) opines that “motivation is an important psychological
construct that initiates and affects learning and performance and so is very
necessary in language learning and acquisition”. Subsequently, Ajisafe (2009)
sees motivation as one of the major similarities and differences between how a
First Language (L1) and a Second Language (L2) or
additional languages are learnt in which the difference lies in the level or
degree of motivation. Ajisafe (2009) further notes that it is a condition that
determines how fast or how well a language is learned/acquired. Umaru (2008:31)
draws a distinction between “acquisition” and “learning”. Acquisition according
to Umaru (2008) refers to the “non
conscious incorporation of the target language structure resulting from
exposure to and interaction with target language speakers in genuine
communicative contexts”. Learning, on the other hand, involves the “conscious incorporation of target language rules and is facilitated by
explicit presentation of these rules compiled with feedback in the form of
error correction”. Yule (1996:191) in Agbedo (2009:74) also stated that in
acquisition, the process is “sub-conscious and effortless”; in learning, the
process is “conscious and effortful”.
Although the distinction exist as can be seen above, but we will consider
both (acquisition and learning) to mean the same, hence the use of language
learning/acquisition in this work.
The usefulness of motivation cannot be left unsaid as Morgan, King, Weisz
and Schopler (1993:303) opine that “motivation refers to the driving and
pulling forces which results in persistent behaviour directed toward particular
goals”. From the foregoing, one can deduce that motivation brings about
recurrent/repeated behaviour. Hockenbury and Hockenbury (2000:306) concur with
the view of Morgan et al (1993) as they posit that “Motivation refers to the
forces acting on or within an organism to initiate and direct behaviour”.
Motivation can be either internal or external in nature. It is internal, if the
behaviour emanates from the inside (within) of an individual, and external if
the desire/behaviour is coming from outside/acting upon the individual.
Bassett-Jones and Lloyd (2005:920) suggest that “motivation is concern
with how behaviour gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is
stopped and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organism while
all these are going on”. Although Young (2000:1) is of the view that motivation
can be defined in a variety of ways, depending on whom you ask – ask someone on
the street, you may get a response like “it is what drive us” or “it is what
make us to do the things we do”, but the truth is that motivation is geared
towards achieving a desired aim and every human being is compelled to exhibit a
particular behaviour/attitude depending on whether the motivation is positive
or negative.
According to the FREE Online Courses on Motivation, positive motivation
induces people to do work in the best possible manner to improve their
performance. This suggests that better facilities and rewards are provided for
improved performance. For instance, when a father tells his son, “if you study
well and get high grades in your examination, I will buy you a new bicycle”.
Negative motivation aims at controlling unlawful behaviour and seeks to instill
a sense of fear (punishment) in individuals.
Phonetics as earlier stated is part of language, and we cannot do away
with it especially as it relates to this research work. Ogayi (2005:1) sees
phonetics as “the study of language sound production, the quality of sound
produced in terms of phonetic environment in which they occur and the
perception of such sounds”. In a similar notion, Nwankwegu and Nwodc (2012:11)
posit that “phonetics is that which describes how sounds are produced
(articulated); how they travel in the air as sound waves and how they are
perceived through air.
Since phonetics involves the production, transmission and perception of
sounds, it then follows that the correct pronunciation of sounds is a basis for
efficient communication in English language, as in any other language. It is a
behaviour that every normal human being should strive to accomplish on daily
basis so as to foster good communication between those in our community and the
society at large.
Interestingly, Johnson and Kozikowska (2009) examined the importance of a
good knowledge of phonetics and state thus:
“Phonetics
is such an important tool for learning and teaching of foreign languages. it
facilitates the ability to hear, understand and produce different sounds. It
stirs up the correct pronunciation of sounds. When it is used inappropriately,
it can lead to misunderstanding and even complete communication breakdown
between speakers coming from two or more different linguistic backgrounds.
Phonetics provides data for phonology. Although these two are closely related
to each other, but understanding phonology without a good knowledge of
phonetics is almost impossible, because phonetics feeds phonology with data
which is then used in exploring the sound patterns of a language. It avails one
the opportunity to represent (transcribe) words the way they are spoken so as
to communicate with the world at large”.
The
acquisition of phonetic sounds is achievable through motivation. Yusuf
(2006:36) rightly says “iii second language learning as in every other field of
human learning, motivation is the crucial force, which determines whether a learner
embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he
perseveres”. This work will examine the role of motivation in the acquisition
of phonetic sounds among the Ebonyi
State University
students in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State,
Nigeria.
Over the years, it has been observed that most students pass through the
university without actually learning or reaching proficiency in the use of
phonetic sounds. It is against this background that the researcher wishes to
investigate the role of motivation in the acquisition of phonetic sounds by
these English language learners.
Even students in Linguistics and Literary Studies encounter varying
degrees of difficulties in the acquisition of phonetic sounds. Therefore, it is
our concern to unravel the causes of such difficulties and proffer workable
means that will enhance the students’ ability in the acquisition of phonetic
sounds of English language.
The objectives of this work are to:
1.
critically look at the role motivation plays in the
acquisition of phonetic sounds as it concerns the students within the frame of
this work.
2.
find out the difficulties the students encounter in the
acquisition of phonetic sounds.
3.
examine the importance of having a good knowledge of
phonetic sounds (pronunciation) among the L learners.
This work will play a very vital role in educating both students and
teachers to imbibe the attitude of motivating learners as regards the
acquisition of phonetic sounds.
It will
enable the English language learners to strive to acquire phonetic sounds.
Also, it
would help to redirect the mindset of the lecturers and students to be
(positive motivators) rather than (negative motivators) to enhance language
learning.
The
following questions would be attempted in this work.
i.
Does motivation play a role in pronunciation learning?
ii.
To what extent is motivation relevant in the acquisition
of phonetic sounds among language learners?
This research work
centres on the role of motivation in the acquisition of phonetic sounds among
the Ebonyi State University
students specifically in the Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies,
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ebonyi State
University, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The Department is made up
of four (4) sub which include Linguistics, Igbo, French, and English
Literature. We will not delve into the concept of motivation as it affects
students in other disciplines within or outside the already named institution.
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