Self-initiated foreign language listening outside class: A mixed-methods investigation of learners’ motivation and their perceptions through self-determination theory

With the advancements in technology and a growing number of mobile/computer-accessed platforms, opportunities for spoken foreign language (FL) exposure have increased considerably. While some learners seize these opportunities to engage in FL listening beyond the classroom (e.g., watching FL movies), others remain demotivated to do so. This mixed-methods study set out to examine 275 Grade-10-to-12 English-as-a-FL (EFL) learners’ motivation and perceptions based on the amount of voluntary English listening they engaged with outside class. The findings from the e-questionnaire revealed that most participants had little-to-some such exposure. Through the lens of self-determination theory, we found that those having a lot of exposure showed the highest (FL listening) intrinsic motivation; however, it was the little-to-some group that demonstrated the highest introjected regulation. All participants revealed high external regulation. Furthermore, the open-ended responses showed that there were seven categories of reasons why the participants listened to English voluntarily. The most popular reasons were: English improvement and interesting/useful things/people in English (e.g. Marvel; VTubers). From the qualitative dataset, we also uncovered seven categories of suggestions that could be effective in motivating learners to engage in out-of-class FL listening.