INVESTIGATING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ACADEMIC RESILIENCE AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING DEMOTIVATION

Abstract

English learning demotivation is a salient phenomenon that debilitates students’ learning motivation. Although a plethora of research has tried to discover possible factors leading to students’ ESL/EFL demotivation, few research studies have attempted to investigate the interaction of academic resilience with English learners’ demotivation. To close this lacuna, the present quantitative research studied 234 college students' academic resilience and its interaction with their English learning. To collect the data, two close-ended questionnaires on English learning demotivation and academic resilience were adopted from studies by Kikuchi (2011), and Wagnild (2009), respectively. All participants' responses were analyzed in SPSS through correlation and a series of simple linear regressions. The results showed that academic resilience had a significant and negative interaction with English language learning demotivation. These results support the stance that fostering students' resilience can enable them to bounce back in the face of academic setbacks. These findings imply that EFL/ESL teachers should help their students focus on building resilience against the forces that diminish their L2 learning interest. English language teachers can enhance learners' persistence (i.e., perseverance) by encouraging them to set clear learning objectives and engage in self-regulated learning. English language learners should also be assisted in enhancing their problem-solving skills, which can promote their self-reliance. Besides, learners' own awareness of the practical importance of English in the context of Pakistan can also provide them with a reason to study the English language.