Motivators That Do Not Motivate: The Case of Chinese EFL Learners and the Influence of Culture on Motivation

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 39, No. 4, December 2005 609
Motivators That Do Not Motivate:
The Case of Chinese EFL Learners and the Influence of Culture on Motivation
JUDY F. CHEN
The Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology
Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China
CLYDE A. WARDEN
National Chung Hsing University
Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China
HUO-TSAN CHANG
National Changhua University of Education
Chunghua, Taiwan, Republic of China
It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Second Stain
(1930, p. 657)
Language learning motivation plays an important role in both research and teaching, yet language learners are still largely understood in terms of North American and European cultural values. This research explored language learning motivation constructs in a Chinese cultural setting, where large numbers of students are required to study English.
In Taiwan, 567 language learners responded to a survey concerning motivation orientation, expectancy, and self-evaluated skill. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to explore potential relationships within the framework of the process model. Expectancy was found to be an intervening construct between motivation orientations and self-evaluated skill. The strongest link to expectancy was the required motivation, with the integrative motivation playing no significant role. The context of these findings is discussed in relation to
Chinese cultural and educational history and a proposed motivator— the Chinese Imperative. Implications for teaching practice are explained, including the need to reconsider motivation constructs within non-
Western cultural settings.
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Language learning theory has generally accepted the axiom that language learners with higher levels of motivation will be higher achievers. Finding what constitutes motivation for language learners in various cultural settings, however,

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