Making English Personally Meaningful: Meaning-Making Processes and Motivational Variability Among Korean EFL Learners

초록

This study explores how Korean university students in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context construct personal meanings around their English learning and how these meaning-making processes influence their motivational variability. A total of 33 Korean university students majoring in linguistics-related subjects wrote a reflective essay and created a bar chart visualizing their motivational trajectories. Based on average motivation levels and standard deviations, four focal participants were selected through scatter plot analysis. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining qualitative analysis of retrospective narratives and bar charts to trace learning experiences across school years. The analysis identified four types of personal meaning: Pre-relevance, Personal Association, Personal Usefulness, and Identification. Learners who developed personal meanings early and integrated English into their broader identities demonstrated stronger and more stable motivation over time. In contrast, learners who experienced delayed or fragmented meaning-making showed greater motivational instability. These findings highlight that early and sustained personal meaning construction is critical for maintaining motivation over time in compulsory learning environments.

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