Bibliographic details and abstracts are available to all. Downloads of full-text dissertations are restricted to University of Portsmouth members who must login. MPhils may be accessed by all.

Abstract

One issue that has been identified in classrooms teaching English in Japan is that for many students learning the language often has little meaning other than preparing them for sections of their university entrance exams. It seems an intuitive proposition that the more curiosity and interest one feels toward studying a language, one would have corresponding greater associations with positive attitudes, affect and intended learning effort toward it. This exploratory research found support for this supposition through regression analyses of Likert scale questionnaire data from 269 Japanese high school students. Dimensions of Kashdan et al’s (2018) Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale (5DC) were found to relate to second language acquisition (SLA) constructs at differing levels of explanatory variance: 26% of a measure of language anxiety’s variance being explained by stress tolerance; 40% of international posture’s variance being primarily accounted for by joyous exploration; 52% of the variance in a new construct labelled ‘curiosity in English studies’ (CiES), again explained by joyous exploration. International posture and CiES were then found to subsequently relate to a measure of intended learning effort toward studying English, accounting for a high amount of explanatory variance at 72%, with CiES acting as the much more substantial predictor. The results found here suggest that curiosity, as measured by the 5DC, should be further probed as to how its associations and potential causal relations with language acquisition constructs may be leveraged to help students in Japan and beyond form meaningful connections to their English studies.

Course: Applied Linguistics and TESOL (DL) - MA - C2023

Date Deposited: 2020-04-16

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13541.html