Motivation towards learning French among undergraduate students in Thailand

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to study factors contributing to the increase in happiness and motivation towards
learning French among Thai undergraduate students in Thailand using the Socio educational Model to analyse the situations.
French is one of the important languages and is used across the globe. However, for some learners in Thailand, French is only
the second foreign language following English. Through experience as a French lecturer at the tertiary level, the researcher
found that learners had the motivation to choose French as their major at university, but after they had started to learn for a
certain period, the motivation began to decline. For some learners, they lost their motivation towards learning French and
eventually changed their study plan. For this problem, the researcher became interested in studying the attitudes towards the
French language and learning experience of the learners in order to seek supportive and corrective guidelines so that the
learners continue to hold the motivation towards learning French. It was found that the motivation type towards choices to
learn French was Instrumental Motivation. It meant learning French for employment opportunities. Most learners had positive
attitudes towards French learning and French speaking communities. The learners wanted to have experience in using a foreign
language particularly in Europe in order to learn the customs that were different from the Thai counterpart. In general, the
learners demonstrated positive attitudes towards French learning at the university, also towards the lecturers and the course.

Keywords: Motivation; amotivation; French language; learning French as a foreign language.