Motivation and English Language Learning: Students’ Perspectives

This study investigates university students’ motivation for learning English language in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The region is a foreign language learning context because English language learners almost entirely learn the language inside the classroom and without regular exposure to the English language outside. Besides English language centers, English Department in private universities is one of the most wanted departments in the region. However, we do not know students’ motivation for their choice. Therefore, a questionnaire was administered to 106 students from English department in a private university with the intention to obtain knowledge about their motivation for learning the English language and more specifically whether it is integrative and/or instrumental motivation. The study found that the level of students’ integrative motivation was different from instrumental motivation. This finding can be used by educators and university lecturers to embed motivation constructs in their teaching practices to keep the students motivated throughout their college years and have the desired outcome in the end.