A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

4.4.4 Motivation

As has been argued, both first and second language development are
supported by a basic need to communicate. Language is needed to make
sense of the world and to ∞pe and interact with the environment and language
is used for real purposes. The same cannot be said for the learning of a foreign
language in the classroom where any definite needs to communicate in the
target language are generally absent. Children who start learning a foreign
language at school already have a language system through which they can
communicate and make sense of their environment. The absence of this 'need'
for a new language and the need to communicate in that new language (the
absence ofthe 'force' of the speech act as defined by Austin) is likely to be one
of the crucial differences between first or second language language acquisition
and the child learning a foreign language in the classroom. Whether the foreign
language learner in the classroom can ever be as motivated as the child
acquiring his first language remains doubtful. As Hawkins (1981: 205) argued,
the excitement of learning the time in a first language, 'divided into hours,
minutes and seconds' and the possibilities this opened up, is unlikely to be
repeated in a second language. Having already conceptualised parts ofthe
world, renaming these concepts and objects in a foreign language is hardly a
journey of discovery. In fact, as Hawkins argued, it can be a relatively boring
undertaking for the young language learner.

The literature on motivation, most notably the seminal work by Gardner &
Lambert (1972) suggests that motivation is closely linked to the social and

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