A Framework to Understanding Motivation in the TESOL Field

TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is a field that receives the contribution of various disciplines to support its theoretical and practical foundations. In this paper, the author presents an overview of the approaches used to conceptualize motivation in psychology and apply it to TESOL. Then, a selected number of factors or dimensions of the achievement motivation construct, identified in the research about motivation in cognitive psychology, are highlighted. Based on the previous dimensions, some practical and research implications are suggested to be applied in the area of motivation to learn a second (SL) or foreign language (FL). Finally, the author supports the need to conceptualize motivation, not only from a cognitive view, but most importantly, from a socio- constructive approach, especially in the TEFL context.