Investigating Adult Migrant ESL Learners' Language Learning Motivational Profile in Australia: Towards a Bicultural Identity

I want to go anywhere […] just myself for example hospital and bank’. So says Jihye, a young Korean migrant to Australia and a participant in the study from which the research in this chapter draws its data. Her words illustrate the gulf that adult migrant English as a Second Language (ESL) learners feel between their competence now and in the imagined future, between their actual self and their ideal self (Dörnyei, 2005). The broad topic of the present chapter is this gulf, and in particular the self-perception of these ESL migrant learners in Australia as they seek to realise their Ideal second language (L2) selves. Since the Ideal L2 self is a potent factor in improving one’s language competence, the study thus illuminates the motivational profile of these learners.