Chilean Primary Learners’ Motivation and Attitude towards English as a Foreign Language

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article deals with factors affecting motivation and attitudes of young learners learning English as a foreign language. It appears to be the first such study focusing on the target population of young language learners in Chile. In the first part, the paper presents a comprehensive literature review in the area of foreign language attitudes and motivation. The research presented in the second part is quantitative in nature and has two main objectives: to determine the internal consistency and reliability of a questionnaire for measuring English language motivations and attitudes among Chilean young learners and to identify the relationship between motivational and attitudinal variables and gender, age and the learning conditions of Chilean young learners. The study is based on a statistically detailed data analysis, including a factor analysis and descriptive statistics. However, there are some important considerations to be made before the article is eligible for publication:

1.       One of the major findings reported by the study is that “that a teacher with PELT training and in which children have learning experiences that involve multisensory and audio-visual materials show higher motivation and better attitude towards EFL.« However, it is by no means clear how the author(s) arrived at this conclusion. There is no indication in the description of the method which teachers have a PELT background, in what way this is reflected in their teaching practice, how we can be sure that they (or is it just one of the three?), unlike the teacher(s) without such training, actually used audio-visual material in their teaching, etc. To be able to come to such a conclusion, one would need to carry out an experiment or at least a semi-experiment on a randomized sample, controlling the use of audio-visual material and multisensory activities. Without all this, conclusions on the effect of learning conditions could only be discussed very tentatively or speculatively and only considering the teachers' training background not the actual learning conditions.

 

This is especially important as the effect of learning conditions is discussed extensively in the Discussion and Conclusion chapter in which the author(s) conclude that “these findings illustrate the relevance of considering equal access to appropriate resources for early language learning such as multisensory and audio-visual materials« - while this seems to be a good suggestion, it is not based on findings supported by the data in this study. I believe this to be a major deficiency of the study presented and would recommend reconsidering both the objective related to the ‘learning conditions’ and the interpretation of the results.

 

2.       In the description of the questionnaire we learn that the author(s) used items from four different questionnaires, but it is not clear according to what selection criteria. It would make sense to actually see the items used or at least see examples for each factor. In the present article, only examples for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and Ideal L2 self are included, while there are no item examples for the other two factors (attitudes and parents-oriented motivation), which is rather inexplicable.

 

3.       The article is supposed to include a “child-appropriate Likert scale questionnaire« but the only adaptation seems to be the visual support in the Likert scale. There is extensive research in the area of surveying children (for example:  De Leeuw, 2011 and Bratož, Štemberger and Pirih, 2019) which points to methodological issues related to children's cognitive, communicative and social development, for example, the form and length of the questionnaire, etc. and which could be consulted here. It would be worth mentioning that children are considered a special population which needs to be studied with caution. Especially since one of the two main aims of the study was to determine the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument used.

4. I recommend more subject-specific key words,  e.g. 'Chile' is too general.

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is overall good, but I would still recommend a thorough language check, especially with respect to some terms, for example:

“The findings revealed that both familiar and entertaining extramural activities are predictors of young language learners' English vocabulary knowledge.” - Is ‘familiar’ the right word here? Or ‘familial’? Please check.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is an interesting paper which contributes to the limited research in the Chilean context, as suggested by the author(s). Good literature review and rich statistical analysis. Please see below some comments which I hope you will find them useful.

L10: questionnaire applied à distributed (same in L23)

L18: gender, learning conditions, teacher and grade à are these the five factors? please make any necessary changes so that it matches the discussion. Please make it explicit in other parts of the paper, where reference is made.

L21-22: Particularlyà not a main sentence. Please rephrase

L33-34: please rephrase

L40: theirà it refers to…? please rephrase

L44: a suggested curriculum à add the reference please

L49: learning condition à learning conditions?

L52: (L2)à please give the abbreviations the first time the terms are used in the text (e.g., L50). The same with L1 (e.g., L174).

L94: and instead of ; (after Enever)

L110: Please add the full form of EFL

L115: which showed à who?

L119: finding… à . It was found…

L123-124: seem/rely à in past tense

L132: foreign language à why not FL?

L139: delete 2021?

L140: 4th-grade: please use one form throughout the text (i.e., L150: second-grade). Check throughout.

L157: to the children’s?

L178, L180: objective/objectives: please rephrase

L184: learning conditions à please explain (the information is provided in L277 but I think it will be useful for the readers to have it here)

L205: Add fig.2 in text

L208: The questionnaire needs to be added in the appendix so that we can have the relevant information and see how the analysis fits. It is important for the discussion to know the questions the students responded.  

L215: was applied/with the explanation: please rephrase

L219: pupils à everywhere else students / here perhaps their children?

L221: Fig.3 or Fig. 3 as in Fig. 1?

L223: reference in the correct form

L236: PELT à full form?

L236-239: I might have missed something (I apologise). School: what about it? please clarify. teachers’ training/years of experience/hours of planning: how were the data collected? Could you please include the relevant data in the paper?   

L251: is à are

L268: “à needed?

L269: Motivational à why M?

L272: Parents Oriented à please make sure it appears in the same form throughout the text (i.e., why in capitals?)

L277: Learning conditions considered à please rephrase

L286: AE/EM à why here and not previously?

L294: à where any teachers without training? This is why it’s important to have the relevant

information (in text).

L304: How were the data collected about students’ experience with multisensory materials? Based on the questionnaire? What about student numbers (in text please)? (the same with L311). It would be easier to follow the discussion.

L234-237: please rephrase

L238: for, their à , needed?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please see comments above

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a well-articulated piece of research in terms of methodology that is easy to read (except for section 2.2. Research Objectives, which could be presented in a better way). It contributes novelty to the body of literature within the field of EFL-motivation, especially for the context of Chile and its particular management of the Primary Education school curriculum, as pointed out by the authors. It is also worth highlighting that are the clear limitations to the study, which, although those limitations could have affeted the results obtained and conclusions given, might not detract from the good work done, at least from my perspective. Some suggestions for improvement are included in the original file (i.e., comments) in terms of (writing) style, as well as some grammatical typo.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some minor issues to be considered.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a much improved version of the paper, although the question remains as to the extent one can generalize the results with respect to the teachers with PELT training. In the description of the data, the author(s) still use the plural 'teachers' or the indefinite article "a PELT-trained teacher" when it is now clear that there was only one teacher with a PELT qualification.

L316-320: "As for the teachers with PELT training, statistically significant differences were ob- 316 served in attitudes towards English (W=1618; p<0.05), intrinsic motivation (IM) (W=1675; 317 p<0.05), and extrinsic motivation (W=1535; p<0.05). In these three factors, students taught 318 by a PELT-trained teacher exhibited more positive attitudes, as illustrated in Figure 9 be- 319 low. "

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of our manuscript. We appreciate the time dedicated to providing feedback to our paper and we are very grateful for the comments. We have considered your comments and have included the suggestions made.

Below we provide the response in blue. All modifications in the manuscript have been highlighted in yellow.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a much improved version of the paper, although the question remains as to the extent one can generalize the results with respect to the teachers with PELT training. In the description of the data, the author(s) still use the plural 'teachers' or the indefinite article "a PELT-trained teacher" when it is now clear that there was only one teacher with a PELT qualification.

L316-320: "As for the teachers with PELT training, statistically significant differences were ob- 316 served in attitudes towards English (W=1618; p<0.05), intrinsic motivation (IM) (W=1675; 317 p<0.05), and extrinsic motivation (W=1535; p<0.05). In these three factors, students taught 318 by a PELT-trained teacher exhibited more positive attitudes, as illustrated in Figure 9 be- 319 low. "

We agree with Reviewer 1 on that the use of plural and indefinite article was confusing; therefore, we have rephrased this point. Please see page 12, lines 315-318.

We hope that following these careful revisions, the manuscript meets your high standards. The authors welcome further constructive comments.