A Study of Intercultural Contact & L2 Motivation for Saudi Sojourners

Communicating with people from other cultures using English (direct ICC) and/or encountering English cultural artefacts (indirect ICC), gives English learners purpose and meaning to study the language. Students who have had numerous ICC experiences have had the chance to experience authentic communication in English. This in turn gives them a sense of themselves as being an actual English user in the future, and consequently might boost their motivation for learning English, as they begin to see themselves in terms of an Ideal L2 Self in which they are English users. On the other hand, students who have had few ICC experiences possibly lack the experience of being English users, and they might be motivated to learn English because they feel that they ought to.Using the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005), this mixed methods study aimed to investigate two key issues. First, to investigate the possible relationships between prior levels of ICC and self-reported motivation to learn English among newly arrived, during their 1st month. Second, to explore whether the reported motivational profiles on arrival help to explain the behaviour of 4 new arrivals during their 1st year.