Research on L2 learning motivation has achieved a great leap with the L2 motivation theory proposed by Robert Gardner and his Canadian associates. Gardner’s Integrative and Instrumental Orientation theory (1959, 1985) has had a profound influence on subsequent research in L2. Bonny Norton (2011) however pointed out that there was a problem with respect to the relation between identity and language learning. Norton criticized the setting of the language learner as unitary, fixed, a-historical subject. She could show that “motivation is a much more complicated or complex matter” than assumed by Gardner. Motivation decides the learner’s investment in his language learning, while his willingness to invest is also influenced by his “ongoing production of identities and his desires for the future”.

In accordance with the described development of L2 learning motivation theory there is a turn of L2 learning motivation research from the positivist paradigm to a constructivist paradigm. That is, more and more researchers turn from the psychometric methods to more “socially grounded and value-based” frameworks (Ushioda, 2011). Thus there is a call to understand learners as people, and not as statistical figures with steady attitudes toward different forms of questionnaires. The present set of discourse can therefore be understood as an invitation to combine L2 learning motivation research with Bildungsgang research (i.e. research on learner development and educational experience). The approach assumes a dialectical framing of teacher-learner interaction (Klingberg, 1987) which allows to conceive the learners as “subjects and objects at the same time, in the direct or indirect way, objects of a process they have to endure, on the one hand, and which they co-construct, on the other hand”. Consequently, only when the teacher accepts the subject-position of the learners can an authentic learner participation be realized (Meyer, 2010). Bildungsgang research thus invites to do research on how learners perceive their subject-position and how they regulate their learning. It for sure does not mean that the teacher should try to control the classroom; instead he/she should accept learners  with particular identities, histories, goals and motives.

My research is a response to this call. I place the English learner into a vocational college in China and investigate the relationship between learning motivation and learner identity. I will further on ask how the individual English learners make sense of their experiences with language learning, language use and classroom interaction and communication. I formulate two hypotheses for this research programme: 1. There are identity changes during the process of learning English as a foreign language, and 2. these changes allow to identify and evaluate the development of the students’ English language learning motivation.

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