Attitude, beliefs and motivation and language choice: The impact of attitude, beliefs and motivation on students' decisions to choose to study a foreign language

In an increasingly globalized world, the need for a pool of competent multilingual citizens is of growing importance. To help develop this pool of multilingual talent, this study explores the role attitudes, beliefs and motivations have on the motivation of language learners. To do so, this study centered on interviews with two groups of undergraduate students studying at a large mid-Western Canadian university. One group consisted of language learners who were studying or had studied a foreign language as part of their university coursework, while the second group consisted of students who had never studied a language at the university level. The findings of the study were that integrative language experiences through 'language positive' experiences and/or experience adapting to another's culture had the most significant positive effect on a subject's interest in learning a foreign language. It was also found that to lesser degree that language classroom pedagogy that modelled authentic language use likely has a similar though less significant effect.