The role of motivation in teaching speaking in ESP: a case study of a lebanese private university

Abstract

In learning any language, speaking plays an essential part in language acquisition. This has been a problematic issue as language teachers aspire to improve students communicative skills through the use of different techniques such as role play, discussions, simulations among others or by improving students vocabulary and pronunciation. The study sheds light on the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in teaching speaking in an English speaking class where English is taught as a foreign language for specific purposes such as business English, aviation English training among others and whether motivation is linked to academic, linguistic and socio-cultural factors. The importance of developing speaking skills in these specific situations has a great impact on students academic, social and professional development. Our study investigated The University of Balamand (hereafter UoB) 72 diverse participants from different majors who were divided between sophomore, junior and senior students on the one hand and the students gender on the other. The reason behind this division was to test both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and which group is more motivated. SPSS statistical analyses show a variation in the results between the two groups. The test revealed (1) that there was a significant, positive and small to medium correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and academic factors, (2) non-significant correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and linguistic factors indicating that motivation is not related to linguistic factors and (3) significant, positive and medium to large correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and socio-cultural factors.