Motivations for ESL writing improvement in pre-university contexts

Abstract

We consider the case of adult English as a second language (ESL) learners from diverse countries internationally aiming to enter university programs in North America, most of whom are highly motivated to improve their writing and their proficiency in English, We ask, how might we conceptualize motivation for this unique population? How can we describe these students' perceptions of their writing abilities in English? How might teaching and curriculum be organized to capitalize on the goals these students have for their writing improvement? We report on three studies concerning (a) the goals that 48 ESL learners expressed during interviews about their writing improvement in English, (b) case studies of2 ESL students who demonstrated relatively high and low levels of motivation for their writing improvement, and (c) a partial replication of Zimmerman and Bandura ( 1994 ), surveying 150 of these students about their abilities to self-regulate their composing processes. © 2007 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.