Possible L2 Selves and Learner Beliefs of Secondary School Students

With English being a compulsory subject from the third year of elementary school in Japan, long-term L2 learning motivation has become increasingly important. As such, it is necessary to ascertain the attitudes of learners towards studying English and its future use. The participants in this quantitative study were 265 Year 9 public Japanese junior high students. A questionnaire featuring 18 Likert-scale questions gauged student opinions regarding the strength of their ideal and ought-to L2 selves, and the value of communicative and grammar translation approaches. Results indicated that students had stronger ideal L2 selves than ought-to selves and were positive towards the communicative approach more so than grammar translation. However, their possible L2 selves were weak, and the participants were unable to distinguish the pedagogical approaches as two separate constructs. Recommendations have been included as to how best to encourage the creation and development of L2 possible selves to support long-term student motivation.