The School is proud to have a strong tradition of co-publishing with its students
Current School of English PhD students Zana Ibrahim and Christine Muir have recently co-published a chapter in a new book with their supervisor, Professor Zoltán Dörnyei.
The chapter, entitled 'Directed motivational current: Energising language learning through creating intense motivational pathways' appears in the recently published Motivation and Foreign Language Learning: From theory to practice 1
They describe the chapter thus: "In this chapter, we introduce a novel psychological construct whose key aspects are well-established in major motivation theories. A Directed Motivational Current (DMC) is a conceptual framework which depicts unique periods of intensive motivational involvement both in pursuit of and fuelled by a highly valued goal/vision. The heightened motivational state of individuals or groups involved in a DMC is maintained through the deployment of a salient facilitative structure that includes reinforcing feedback loops, positive emotionality and the prospect of reaching a new level of operation. When applied in second language contexts, DMCs can energise language learners to perform beyond expectations and across several levels and timescales, including long-term engagements."
This publication comes just before the International Conference on Motivational Dynamics and Second Language Acquisition, which will be held at Nottingham later this month.
Further information about the chapter and book can be found from the John Benjamins Publishing Company.
1D. LASAGABASTER, A. DOIZ and J.M. SIERRA, eds., 2014. Motivation and foreign language learning: From theory to practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Posted on Monday 18th August 2014