Socio-Educational Model Of Second Language Acquisition Essay

Gardner’s Socio-educational Model of Second Language acquisition

Gardner’s Socio-educational Model of Second Language Acquisition, according to Gu (2009) is the first and most influential theory of motivation in the area of L2 motivation research. It is concerned with the role of individual differences in second language acquisition. It was developed in 1960 and has undergone a number of revisions in order to take into account new information or to more clearly describe what appear to be the major processes operating. It has its formal roots in Lambert’s social psychological model and a model proposed by Carroll (1962, as mentioned in Gardner, 1985) which was concerned with simulating the relative predictability of achievement in a second language by variables such as aptitude, intelligence, motivation and opportunity to learn. A major characteristic of the socio- educational model is that it has evolved in conjunction with research conducted to test aspects of it, and as a result the

Analysis and evaluation summary of Gardner’s model Analysis Evaluation

1. The integrative motive hypothesis: integrative motive is positively related to L2 achievement. found to lack generality. The notion of integrative motive as a unitary concept was not supported by the empirical evidence.

2. The cultural belief hypothesis: cultural beliefs within a particular milieu could influence the development of the integrative motive to the extent to which the integrative motive relates to L2 achievement. insufficient definition of what constitutes a cultural belief.

3. The active learner hypothesis: integratively motivated L2 learners achieve high L2 proficiency because they are active learners. level of L2 proficiency has never been controlled. The question of cause & effect has not been addressed.

4. The causality hypothesis: integrative motive usually affects L2 achievement. Other researchers proposed that achievement is the cause rather than the effect of