Applied Linguistics Advance Access originally published online on July 14, 2008
Applied Linguistics 2009 30(2):166-185; doi:10.1093/applin/amn025
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© Oxford University Press 2008
Modelling the Role of Inter-Cultural Contact in the Motivation of Learning English as a Foreign Language
1Eötvös University, Budapest, 2Lancaster University, UK
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Abstract |
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The research reported in this paper explores the effect of direct and indirect cross-cultural contact on Hungarian school children's attitudes and motivated behaviour by means of structural equation modelling. Our data are based on a national representative survey of 1,777 13/14-year-old learners of English and German in Hungary; 237 of the students learning English with the highest level of inter-cultural contact were selected for analysis. Our model indicates that for our participants, motivated behaviour is determined not only by language-related attitudes but also by the views the students hold about the perceived importance of contact with foreigners. The results of our study also reveal that the perceived importance of contact was not related to students’ direct contact experiences with target language speakers but was influenced by the students’ milieu and indirect contact. Among the contact variables, it was only contact through media products that had an important position in our model, whereas direct contact with L2 speakers played an insignificant role in affecting motivated behaviour and attitudes.