The Impact of Outside Social Support on EFL Iraqis Learners’ Motivation at University Level

Abstract

There are many reasons for learning a foreign or a second language. It might be for some learners, a kind of future income; while for others, it is only a hobby to learn about a new culture of a foreign country. The present study aims to investigate what factors play in learning English language. This paper also highlights the influence of the factor of outside social support such as good income job on the other factors of motivation. Data were gathered through scale questionnaire distributed to 60 EFL learners and 10 semi-structured interviews with randomly selected students from two different departments of English in two colleges, College of Arts and College of education for humanities at Anbar University, Iraq. The data were analyzed using SPSS tool. The results indicated that the motivation to learn English varied according to students’ intentions, goals and, attitudes towards learning. In addition, it shows a clear statistical correlation between the outside social support – finding better career and future opportunities and goal factors. Henceforth, the outside social support appears a significant contributor to the motivation of the EFL Iraqi learners.