After a 5 year hiatus (to work on textbooks), we will be publishing a new issue of ELT-J. The two articles in this October 2017 issue are previewed below. Links for a download of the issue as a PDF will follow. A Review of L2 Student Motivation Robert Dykes University of Fukui (Fukui, Japan) Abstract Motivation in the contexts of SL, FL and L2 learning has been researched and analyzed since the 1950s. (Gardner, 2006). It has been concluded through research that aptitude alone is not enough to succeed in the L2 classroom (Gardner, 1985). Dornyei (1998) maintains that alongside aptitude, motivation is a key factor in language acquisition success. The amount of material completed on motivation within the L2 context since the 1950s is far too extensive to cover in an essay of this size and cope, so it will instead briefly cover some of the key and influential explanations of motivation, focusing mostly on the work of Gardner, Dornyei, and some key developments stemming f...
