• Razieh Rabbani Yekta

  Author

One of the main challenges of distance education system is the student's retention and
persistence at the university and maintaining their motivation. When English language learning
as one of the compulsory courses of almost all the majors comes into scene, the situation
becomes more acute. The purpose of the present survey is to study the de-motivational factors
among distance education learners of EFL and compare them against those who study at the
regular systems. Another purpose of this study is to examine the coping processes that EFL
learners use for re-motivation. To these ends, the Falout's EFL re-motivation questionnaire was
used to elicit: 1) the antecedent conditions of the learners, 2) de-motivational experiences, and
3) coping processes used by EFL learners for re-motivation. Participants were 150 EFL learners
majoring in humanities of whom 65 students were passing their English courses at Isfahan
University (at its regular classrooms) and 85 are from Payam Noor University (as distance
education system). The results of this study indicate that, under equal proficiency level, Dis and
Reg EFL students are not so much different in terms of the general Antecedent Conditions of
Learner, but something that makes them different is the de-motivational experiences and the time
when this de-motivation has crept into their language learning. Findings also, indicate that Dis
learners have a considerable degree of discrepancy between their learning experiences (actual
self) and their coping potential (ought self) and this can be one of the reasons for their failure in
learning English.

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