Motivation and Learning Outcomes in Reciprocal SCMC Language-Learning

1. Introduction

Previous research suggests that French university engineering students may be characterized as extrinsically motivated and performance oriented (Brown, 2009). This behaviour may be explained by a prevailing engineering education sub-culture that has been defined as uniquely deductive (Prince & Felder, 2006). Deductive approaches to instruction, and the teacher-centred approaches they imply, do not lead themselves easily to many of the more communicative and learner-centred approaches to language learning preferred in contemporary language-learning instruction. An alternative explanation for this behaviour may be the fact that all university students in France must follow mandatory English language courses or are required to achieve external language certification before graduation. The unwelcome effects, in terms of unconstructive attitudes and low motivation, that mandatory courses may have on students have been well-documented elsewhere (Macfarlane, 2013; Kelly, 2012; Eshel & Kohavi, 2003). Indeed, even though lack of motivation may be understandable in such circumstances, the learning context French learners operate in does not explain their performance orientation. In addition, many students who are studying engineering perceive foreign language learning as an abstraction: just another item on a long list of academic requirements. As a result, their expectations about language courses are frequently very different from those of course lecturers who, on the whole, tend to favour inductive approaches.

In an attempt to nurture greater intrinsic motivation and to break the passivity towards language learning (Brown, 2007) observed among the majority of students in the French engineering school (an elite higher education establishment) where the present investigation took place, a series of credit-based optional language courses has been set up over the last few years. These courses take place outside usual lecturing hours and are strictly oriented towards honing the oral skills (speaking and listening). One of the courses on offer was labelled eTandem, in line with terminology used for other similar modes of telecollabatation (for example O'Dowd, 2013; O'Dowd, 2016).