Abstract

There is a general belief that Asian students are primarily motivated by a desire to succeed at university and obtain a well-paid career upon graduation. Kember et al. (1999) discovered in a series of interviews with Hong Kong students that many statements about career preparation and career relevance showed that they expected the courses to provide both intrinsic and career motivation. Kember (2000) proposed that these students have internalised a value for a high-status well-paid careers and suggested that these findings are applicable to other Asian contexts.

This paper discusses the applicability of the above findings to the Malaysian context in the learning of English as a Second language (ESL). Can we generalise the findings of a homogenous society like Hong Kong to a multicultural society like Malaysia? What are other dynamics involved and in what ways do they affect students' motivation in learning English. This paper will refer to the findings of a doctoral thesis, which explored distance, and on-campus learners' conceptions of their approaches to studying, and their perceptions of the English Proficiency courses offered by a public university in Malaysia. A mixed approach comprising questionnaires and semi-structured interviews was used to gather data for the research. The findings reveal that motivating students to learn English in Malaysia is no straightforward task as it involves the interplay of several factors.