NATESOL March 2024

Harnessing language learning motivation & investment through a writing project

WOOF

WOOF

Dario Luis Banegas

How can we promote language learning motivation and investment through writing?

I have an idea!

what we did

• Framed as action research for 2 school years (Cycle 1 + Cycle 2)

• Ts planned & delivered writing skills lessons: SCT, CLT, TBL.

• Genre-based L2 writing, process writing, & language awareness

• Coursework from Cycle 1 became reading material in Cycle 2

In practice

key concepts

• Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 motivational self system: (1) the ideal L2 self, (2) the ought-to L2 self,and (3) the L2 learning experience.
• Social, contextual, and relational factors (Ushioda, 2013).
• Engagement - investment (Darvin, 2019).

I like these activities and the chance that we can write a poem or a story about what matters to me as a person, my feelings, or my concerns about the environment, for example. It’s what I sometimes do in Spanish. I write things I don’t show to anyone, or things I post on Instagram."

Julieta

"I feel driven to write these stories I’ve got in my head and even think of some illustrations to go with them because they might be published for real."

Ignacio

"When we first answered questions reflecting on a comic about water pollution written by a learner from another city, I couldn’t believe the whole project was true. It was real, writing our stories became so real, they were here published!"

Francisco

ACTIVITY 1 (BR)

Browse the book

Why do you think the students (and the teachers) found it motivating and as a drive for investment?

+ link

ACTIVITY 2 (br)

task

link

IMPLICATIONS

+ info

• Context-responsive projects & responses

• Praxis-oriented endeavours

THANKS!

pUPDATES & QUESTIONS

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References

Darvin, R. (2019). L2 motivation and investment. In Lamb, M., Csizer, K., Henry, A., & Ryan, S. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of motivation for language learning (pp. 245–264). Palgrave. Dörnyei, Z. (2009). The L2 motivational self system. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.),Motivation, language identity and the L2 self(pp. 9-42). Multilingual Matters. Ushioda, E. (2013). Motivation and ELT: Global issues and local concerns. In E.Ushioda (Ed.),International perspectives on motivation: Language learn-ing and professional challenges (pp. 1-17). Palgrave.