Investigating motivation in two groups of English language learners : migrant workers and foreign students in Malta

Abstract

This dissertation investigates motivation in two groups of English language learners, that is, migrant workers and foreign students in Malta, in relation to the research question: ‘What are the Similarities and Variances Between the Motivation of Migrant Workers and Foreign Students in Malta?’. This study adopts a qualitative approach, collecting data through the research instrument of semi-structured interviews from five foreign students and four migrant workers. As it is a qualitative approach, the interviews elicited rich data and were semi-structured to encourage more in-depth responses. The data collected suggests that despite the different categorisations, migrant workers and foreign students share a lot of similarities when learning a foreign language. Data also found that there are a few differences between migrants and foreign students, usually directly related to the different contexts the participants found themselves in. In conclusion, motivation clearly plays a major role in learning a language. Although some variances were mentioned among the two sets of language learners, there were mainly similarities. This seems to suggest that learning a language is not so much based on the category of the learner, as there will always be individual differences, but more so on the language chosen to be learnt. English is a globalised language and so is recognised universally for its importance.