Learner Engagement, Directed Motivational Currents, and Project-Based Learning: A Pedagogical Intervention with English Learners

The concepts of learner engagement and directed motivational currents (DMCs) have recently gained attention for their value in generating a powerful and action-oriented motivational force that is able to cut through the various challenges and disturbances that language learners often face in their educational journey. DMCs, as a form of sustained engagement, describes a long-term experience of intense motivational energy with the aim of achieving a highly valued goal or vision that is characteristic of heightened levels of productivity. From an instructional perspective, therefore, an important aim would be to generate conditions that would lead to such outcomes. Following the framework developed by Dörnyei et al. (2016) for generating DMCs through group projects, the aim of this teacher-based research study was to identify whether learners in a university intensive English program could experience a DMC during an 8-week play performance project conducted in small groups. Focusing specifically on one of the groups and functioning within both a self-determination theory and complex dynamic systems perspective, the study also aimed to identify the combination of elements that contribute to and/or inhibit the development of a DMC. Based on learner data from project journals and conference interviews with the teacher-researcher, the findings indicate that the group experienced a DMC and was the result of a combination of and interaction between a variety of facilitative elements related to positive emotionality; self-concordant goals; goal/vision; a sense of competence, autonomy, and relatedness; and positive group dynamics, key project characteristics, teacher support, and positive outcomes in the form of language-related gains and personal growth. The facilitative elements, furthermore, operated to mitigate against the more attenuating elements represented in the learners’ challenges, fears, anxieties, group tensions, and distractions.