I still remembered the scene in my high school English classes that most students just slept through. Not only they thought the class was too boring, but also too difficult. They learned passively since they were unable to be exposed to the glamour of English. It seemed that it was time to carry out a new language learning program to help them out. After thorough and careful consideration, I come up with a program that should be able to work is about vision. The concept of vision and imagery has been mentioned in Zoltán Dörnyei’s article Motivation and Vision: An Analysis of Future L2 Self Images, Sensory Styles, and Imagery Capacity Across Two Target Languages. They believe that vision is essential to promote one’s proficiency in second language learning. This vision and imagery program is based on theories about the positive impact on student’s second language development, aiming at helping students gain adequate motivation on second language learning. With the help of Future-Self L2 Images, we believe that vision and imagination can motivate students in language learning and help them establish a better image of their ideal language self, while guaranteeing long-term endeavor in their second language learning process at the same time.
Using vision in second language learning can greatly increase student’s motivation. It gives you a clear picture on what really can motivate you. According to Ilmari Ivaska’s article Motivation, Vision, and Future-Self L2 Images among Students of Nordic and Baltic Languages, “to construe a language learner’s motivation for learning a language is to define the vision the learner has for his or her future language self” (119). In other words, the best definition of language learning motivation is the learner’s expectancy to his future level and achievement. We need to set up our vision of our future self in second language learning in order to be intrinsically motivated.
Since vision and imagery are the core of L2 Motivational Self System, we are able to analyze the connections between vision and motivation in a bigger picture. As Ilmari Ivaska has mentioned in Motivation, Vision, and Future-Self L2 Images among Students of Nordic and Baltic Languages, “The L2 Motivational Self System has been successful in accounting for motivational factors in language learning, which in turn has led to a burst of scholarship on language learning motivation and especially in the application of the L2 Motivational Self System” (119). Ilmari Ivaska is saying that proper application of L2 Motivational Self System can contribute to the proficiency and scholarship of your second language learning process. In conclusion, vision, imagery and their source L2 Motivational Self System can definitely motivate students in their second language learning, no matter from a specific picture or a larger one.
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In addition, vision and imagery can help you establish a better image of your ideal language self. An ideal language self refers to the image arouse from you which represents your expectancy to yourself. To some degrees, the level of your ideal self in second language depends on your capacity to visualize, which determines the actual level that you can achieve. In an article conducted by Julia You, Zoltán Dörnyei, and Kata Csizér called Motivation, Vision, and Gender: A Survey of Learners of English in China, they find that “those (students) in key universities and English degree courses had more developed ideal language selves than students attending ordinary universities and non-English degree courses” (96). That is to say, students in key universities and English major develop better in second language than those in normal schools and courses because of the better ideal language selves they set for themselves.
Also, the ideal language self has something in common with the L2 Motivational Self System. Through vision and imagery, they both focus on the future image of you as a better second language learner. Which is to say, “the Ideal L2 Self concerns a desirable self-image of the kind of user that one would ideally like to be in the future” (You, Dörnyei, Csizér, 96). From the perspective of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009), establishing a language ideal self resembles the Ideal L2 Self. In short, vision and imagery can help you develop a better ideal language image, which improves your second language learning.
Furthermore, vision guarantee long-term effort in second language learning process. The vision you set pushes you to put in more and more effort for the reason that you desire to be like your ideal language self. In Christine Muir and Zoltán Dörnyei’s article Directed Motivational Currents: Using vision to create effective motivational pathways, they agree that “Vision understood as a ‘highest-order motivational force’ relates to a long-term endeavor, which is able to override these fluctuations.” The motivation comes from vision is strong and consistent, which promotes your long-term input with intrinsic desire. In that case, vision is also called “one of the most reliable predictors of their long-term intended effort” (Muir, Dörnyei, 360). In a nutshell, vision allow us to put in continuous effort intrinsically to achieve an image of better second language learner.
Not only does vision promotes long-term endeavor, but also does image. Imagination is a process that creates vivid images which can motivate you towards a certain goal, and thus can be applied to second language learning. In Christine Muir and Zoltán Dörnyei’s article Directed Motivational Currents: Using vision to create effective motivational pathways, they divided imagery into two perspectives. The first perspective allows “The experimental knowledge to effectively increase self-efficacy and preparedness for the event in question” (qtd. in Dörnyei & Kubanyiova), while the third perspective is “more likely to prompt action” (361). Namely, although the effectiveness of two imagery perspective are different, they both can prompt to make the vision under long-term effort into reality. Conclusively, imagery can guarantee long-term effort and promote actions at the same time.
All in all, the vision program should be implemented by Chinese MOE because it can motivate students in language learning, help to establish their ideal language self and guarantees long-term effort. Students will be more enthusiastic about second language learning if they are truly motivated. Also, they can have better future language development if they establish a better ideal language self. Furthermore, vision and imagery guarantee continuous input of endeavor. I hope one day, students in secondary school classroom will no longer lose interest in the class, all of them can fully focus on the class with the implementation of vision and imagery program in China!
Works Cited
- Dörnyei, Zoltán, and Letty Chan. ‘Motivation and Vision: An Analysis of Future L2 Self Images, Sensory Styles, and Imagery Capacity Across Two Target Languages.’ Language Learning, vol. 63, no. 3, 2013, pp. 437-462.
- Muir, Christine, and Zoltán Dörnyei. ‘Directed Motivational Currents: Using Vision to Create Effective Motivational Pathways.’ Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, vol. III, no. 3, 2013, pp. 357-375.
- Ivaska, Ilmari. ‘Motivation, Vision, and Future-Self L2 Images among Students of Nordic and Baltic Languages.’ Scandinavian Studies, vol. 89 no. 1, 2017, pp. 115-138.
- You, Chenjing, Zoltán Dörnyei, and Kata Csizér. ‘Motivation, Vision, and Gender: A Survey of Learners of English in China.’ Language Learning, vol. 66, no. 1, 2016, pp. 94-123.
