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Motivation and Foreign Language Learning: From theory to practice
Edited by David Lasagabaster, Aintzane Doiz and Juan Manuel Sierra
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 40] 2014
► pp. 31–49

Motivation, autonomy and metacognition

Exploring their interactions

| University of Warwick

From the perspective of sustaining long-term engagement in L2 learning, personal goals and targets are important in providing a motivational rationale. However, purposeful effortful striving may not be sufficient in itself to regulate motivation when the challenges derive from not knowing how to deal with problems and difficulties in one’s learning – that is, from lack of metacognitive know-how. In this chapter, I problematize this aspect of motivation in L2 learning and examine how processes of motivation may interact with the metacognitive dimension of language learning. Drawing on insights from the literature on autonomy and self-regulated learning, I consider how teachers may mediate the interaction between motivation and metacognition to help learners sustain their engagement in L2 learning.

Keywords: autonomy, metacognition, motivational self-regulation, sociocultural theory, will and skill
Published online: 31 July 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.40.02ush
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