An exploration of motivation and self-beliefs of first year students of German

This article explores 59 university students' motivation for learning German as a foreign language over the course of one academic year. It sheds light on the role of the ideal L2 self, integrative and instrumental orientations, and task-based self-efficacy for students' motivation and pays particular attention to the relationship between the ideal L2 self and self-efficacy beliefs. With the exception of integrative orientation, all variables were significantly correlated with self-perceived effort and thus appeared to play a role in students' motivation to engage with language learning. While students could well imagine becoming proficient users of German, task based self-efficacy to deal with the specific language tasks required at university was relatively low at the beginning of the year, and self-efficacy beliefs for speaking and listening further declined over the course of the year. Given the significant correlations between the ideal L2 self and task based self-efficacy, it is proposed that attending to students' self-efficacy beliefs may also nourish students' ideal L2 self.