Students’ Initial Motivation to Study a Foreign Language in a Swedish Academic Context: A Case Study on Dutch

Abstract

Motivation to learn languages other than English (LOTEs) that are not spoken as widely as French, German, or Spanish needs more attention in research. This qualitative study examines the initial motivation to learn Dutch as a foreign language in higher education in Sweden, utilizing a questionnaire asking students at beginner level to describe their motivation in their own words. The questionnaire was distributed between 2020 and 2023 and was answered by a total of 222 students. Abductive thematic analysis was used in analyzing the data and resulted in four overarching themes of motivation: Getting closer to one’s desirable self, Building relationships, Career asset, and Migration. These themes were discussed in-depth in relation to the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) and the concept of the ideal multilingual self. The implications for motivation in higher education language teaching were discussed in relation to the study’s findings. Finally, the findings should be interpreted within the specific context of the Swedish higher education system, which, due to its structural characteristics, contributes to the enrolment of a heterogeneous student population in university language programs.