The Dynamics of Language Learning Attitudes and Motivation: Lessons From an Interview Study of Dyslexic Language Learners

The aim of our study was to provide an insider's account of the dynamics of language learning motivation in Hungarian students with dyslexia. For this purpose, we conducted qualitative interviews with 15 students who studied foreign languages in a variety of educational settings. In this article, we drew up a dynamic model of language learning motivation based on our interview data with dyslexic learners. We argued that goals, attitudes, and motivated behavior form a closely interrelated coadaptive system, in which change in one of these motivational constructs also brings about change in the other related constructs. We placed these motivational factors within the system of learner internal factors that, for our group of participants, included self‐perceptions and cognitive factors such as dyslexia. The learner was then situated in 2 interrelated external systems: milieu and the instructional setting. In our research, we pointed out how influences stemming from the learners’ immediate environment as well as from the instructional setting might affect learning goals, attitudes, and motivated behavior. Finally, we argued that the general social context is the largest system into which all the previously mentioned subsystems need to be placed.