Factors influencing senior learners’ language learning motivation. A Hungarian perspective

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate Hungarian senior language learners’ motivational profile with a special attention to factors influencing their motivational intensity. We focused on the significant features of Hungarian senior language learners’ motivational behaviour and conducted a survey with thirty senior Hungarian students learning English as a Foreign Language (FL). This instrument was constructed based on Gardner’s socio-educational model and Tremblay and Gardner’s model of second language (SL) motivation. We performed a series of statistical analyses on the data. The results of multiple regression analyses show that the most influential factors regarding motivational behaviour of older language learners in this context are attitude towards leaning the SL and goal specificity.