VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*************************
PHÙNG THỊ PHƯƠNG LAN
A STUDY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNER IDEAL SELF TO
THE SUCCESS IN LEARNING ENGLISH OF THE LEARNERS AT
THE BORDER GUARD ACADEMY
(Một nghiên cứu về tầm quan trọng của lý tưởng người học đối với sự
thành công trong việc học tiếng Anh tại Học viện Biên phòng)
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HA NOI – 2015
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*************************
PHÙNG THỊ PHƯƠNG LAN
A STUDY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNER IDEAL SELF TO
THE SUCCESS IN LEARNING ENGLISH OF THE LEARNERS AT
THE BORDER GUARD ACADEMY
(Một nghiên cứu về tầm quan trọng của lý tưởng người học đối với sự
thành công trong việc học tiếng Anh tại Học viện Biên phòng)
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: DR. PHẠM THỊ THANH THÙY
HA NOI – 2015
DECLARATION BY AUTHOR

methodology. The participants are 100 freshmen in the Border Guard Academy,
Sontay, Hanoi, where I am working. Two data collection instruments are employed:
questionnaires and individual open-ended interviews. The findings show that the
learner ideal self is the key to success in English studying of the learners at the
Border Guard Academy. Despite the existence of ideal self in the students’ mind,
the number of students with ideal self is still humble, which accounts for the border
officers’ inefficiency in solving English using cases. The study puts forward
practical suggestions to all the academy, the teachers of English and the students
with a view to improving English teaching and learning at the academy. The most
important proposal is disseminating the role of the learner ideal self to their own
success in English studying and the demand for buiding up, maintaining and
motivating the ideal selffor the learners at the Border Guard Academy.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table 1: Students’ reasons for studying English Error: Reference source not found
vi
Table 2: Factors affecting students’ motivation in English studying Error:
Reference source not found vi
Table 3: Students’ studying English Error: Reference source not found vi
Table 4: Students’attitude when reaching a goal in English studying Error:
Reference source not found vi
Table 5: Students’attitude when failing to reach a goal in English studying Error:
Reference source not found vi
Table 6: the students’ English results after the first year at the BGA Error:
Reference source not found vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aim of the study 1
3. Objectives of the study 2
4. Research question 2

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
M.A: Master of Art
BGA: Border Guard Academy
L2: Second language
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ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
After more than ten years teaching English, I am still in divided mind as to
why, from the same background and in the same learning circumstances, some
students have succeeded in acquiring a good knowledge of English while others
have failed to achieve even the basic level of it. About 1 year ago, I accidentally
heard one of my student’s mother mentioning the significance of motivation in
general and her son’s ideal self in particular to his success. I immediately came up
with the idea of doing a study of the importance of the Learner Ideal Self to the
Success in Learning English of the Learners at The Border Guard Academy.
It is unarguable that motivation plays an important role in the
learners’success in studying a second or foreign language. Many linguists have
spent their invaluable time studying it. For instance, Dornyei (2001) puts an
emphasis on the teacher’s role of motivating leaners by proposing “teacher skills in
motivating learners should be seen as central to teaching effectiveness”. Spolsky
(1989) also considered motivation as one of the key factors to the learners’ success
in studying a second language. According to him, “The more motivation a learner
has, the more time he or she will spend learning an aspect of a second language” (p.
148). However, the query of how the learner ideal self has effect on English
learning of the learners at the Border Guard Academy still need a careful research to
work out the answer.
2. Aim of the study
The research is done for the purpose of finding out the role of the learner
ideal self in the success in learning English of the learners at the Border Guard

6. Methods of the study
2
The study adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods. The former is
used to get data from a great number of participants while the latter is used to gain
more profound insight into the study subject. The tasks involved are according to a
process. First, data for analysis are collected through questionnaires and interviews,
both of which are carried out on the fresh students. Next, data gathered are
analyzed, displayed and discussed. Finally, all comments, remarks,
recommendations and conclusions are made based on the data analyses of
questionnaires and interviews.
7. Significance of the study
The study when finished will be an important contribution to English
learning and teaching at the Border Guard Academy. So far, neither the teachers nor
the students here have paid attention to this temporary trend of second/foreign
language motivation. Therefore, it is supposed to benefit both teachers and learners
in some ways.
First of all, the teachers are provided with the information of motivation in
general and learner ideal self in particular. During their process of teaching English,
together with equipping their students with necessary knowledge of English, they
will exploit the methods to create motivation for students, stimulating them to make
improvement in English studying.
In addition, the findings of the study will lead the students to have a better
understanding of the ideal self of their own. They will study English not only
because it is a mandatory subject but because it also opens up a novel horizon to
them. With ideal imagination of themselves, they will definitely succeed in learning
English.
Last but not least, this study not only can be applied to English learning and
teaching, but should be taken into consideration for people in all walks of life at this
academy as well. Nevertheless, the success of this study is only a recommendation
3

Deci and Ryan introduced self-determination theory, which is concerned how
individuals translate wants into organized effort. In this theory, they also make a
distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. While the former refers to
“doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable” (Ryan & Deci,
2000b, p.55), the latter has been presented as “pale and impoverished” counterpart.
Another motivation theory that should be taken into consideration is mastery
and performance goal orientations, which includes two types of goal orientations.
In the mastery goal, people concentrate on mastery of a task and have the desire to
acquire new skills without paying attention to enjoyment of satisfaction of doing
5
them whereas in the other, individuals engage in tasks to demonstrate their worth in
relation to others, especially desiring others’ recognition.
Atkinson and his colleages also developed the theory of achievement and
attribution. In the achievement by Atkinson and Birch, motivation is composed of
two fundamental determinants – a desire to achieve success and the inhibitory drive
to avoid failure. The attributional theory by Weiner assumes that individuals make
causal judgements concerning success and failure experiences, which are subjective
but it is these subjective interpretations that influence future behaviour rather than
actual incomes.
Self-efficacy developed by Albert Bandura refers to one’s belief in one’s ability
to get success in specific situation (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 1997). It lies at the
center of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, in which the role of observational
learning and social experience in the development of personality is emphasized.
According to Bandura's theory, people with high self-efficacy, that is, those who
believe they can perform well are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to
be mastered rather than something to be avoided. However, these people sometimes
encounter the failure because of their poor preparation for the task while those with
low self-efficacy experience stimulus to discover more about an unfamiliar subject.
Last but not least, the concept of competence proposed by Elliot and Dweck
tries to infuse individuals with the notion that, “Competence can be seen as a basic

significance of the theory that Gardner contributed. As Dörnyei (1994b, p. 519) puts
it: “Having been familiar with the Gardnerian approach for a long time, we may not
always be conscious of how much of a “breakthrough” this was; one which
rightfully influenced motivation theory for the next decades.” His theory has
impregnated our mind with a new element that plays a big part in the success of
learning an L2 – that is motivation.
Gardner’s work is best known for the identification of two motivational
orientations: integrativeness / integrative motivation and instrumental orientation.
7
The former primarily ‘reflects a genuine interest in learning the second language in
order to come closer to the other language community. At one level, this implies an
openness to, and respect for other cultural groups and ways of life. In the extreme,
this might involve complete identification with the community (and possibly even
withdrawal from one’s original group), but more commonly it might well involve
integration within both communities.’ (Gardner, 2001: 5). On the other hand, the
latter focuses on the learners’ pragmatic purpose of learning a language. For
example, people study a language on the grounds that they want to be promoted in
their career or improve their social status.
Gardner’s theory took root for a long period because of its dominance over the
earlier ones in that ‘it recognizes language learners as social beings and language as
an important element of social identity’ (Ryan, 2009). Besides that, it has attracted
ample discussion and comment because of its controversies. Firstly, Dörnyei (2005)
has pointed out two main areas of terminological difficulty in understanding his
model. The first one is the term integrative, which includes integrative orientation,
integrativeness, and integrative motivation. The other one is the term motivation,
which appears at two levels: motivation and integrative motivation. In addition,
although the terms motivation and orientation are affirmed by Gardner to be
different concepts, he himself sometimes used them inconsistently. Secondly, many
researchers have been opposed to Gardner’s generalization of his theory. According
to Dörnyei, “in a multicultural setting such as Montreal, where Gardner first

relationships with other variables such as achievement or performance. These
approaches do not lend themselves to investigating the complex ebb and flow of
motivation.’
1.1.1.2.3. The process-oriented period of L2 research
By the turn of the 21
st
century, the process-oriented approaches to the
analysis of L2 motivation were proposed by Dörnyei (e.g., 2001b), Ushioda (e.g.,
9
2001), and their colleagues in Europe. In this model, they divide the structure of L2
motivation into pre-actional (choice motivation), actional (executive motivation),
and post-actional (evaluation) phases, in which two key shortcomings are
mentioned: (a) it assumes that we can define clearly when a learning process begins
and ends; (b) it assumes that the actional process occurs in relative isolation,
without interference from other actional processes in which the learner may be
simultaneously engaged. Through these shortcomings they also find out that most
approaches to motivation in second language acquisition (SLA) to date are limited
because they ‘have not taken adequate account of the dynamic and situated
complexity of the learning process or the multiple goals and agendas shaping
learner behavior.’
1.1.1.2.4. The socio-dynamic period
Within the past decade, under the influence of mainstream motivational
psychology, in which there has been a move towards more dynamic contextual
paradigms for the analysis of motivation, researchers on motivation in SLA have
shifted their thinking to the current new social-dynamic phase. This phase is
characterized by a focus on the situated complexity of the L2 motivation process
and its organic development in interaction with a multiplicity of internal, social, and
contextual factors - that is, a move toward relational or dynamic systems
perspectives on motivation (e.g., Dörnyei, 2009a;Ushioda, 2009); and characterized
by a concern to theorize L2 motivation in ways that take account of the broader

Possible Selves and Future Self-Guides are a must to mention. Carveret al. (1994)
emphasises that possible selves - representing the individuals’ ideas of what they
might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of
becoming (Markus &Nurius, 1986) - denote a unique self-dimension in that they
refer to future rather than current self states. Having dipped into what researchers
11
have done to this concept, Markus summarized “Our excitement with the notion of
possible selves had multiple sources. Focusing on possible selves gave us license to
speculate about the remarkable power of imagination in human life. We also had
room to think about the importance of the self-structure as a dynamic interpretive
matrix for thought, feeling, and action, and to begin to theorize about the role of
sociocultural contexts in behaviour. Finally, the concept wove together our mutual
interests in social psychology, social work, and clinical psychology.” Moreover,
Markus and Nurius (1986: 954) subdivided possible selves into three main types:
(1) ‘ideal selves that we would very much like to become’, (2) ‘selves that we could
become’, and (3) ‘selves we are afraid of becoming’. The other concept that
propelled Dörnyei to build up his L2 Motivational Self System is future self-guides.
Generally speaking , these two concepts are merged, but strictly speaking, they still
contain inconsistent points. This concept comprises two key components of
Higgins’s (1987) self theory are the ideal self and the ought self. According to
Higgin, the ideal self refers to the representation of the attributes that one would
ideally like to possess (i.e. representation of hopes, aspirations, or wishes), while
the ought self refers to the representation of attributes that one believes one ought to
possess (i.e. representation of someone else’s sense of duties, obligations or moral
responsibilities) and which therefore may bear little resemblance to one’s own
desires or wishes. He also points out that both of these two selves can derive from
either the individual’s own or someone else’s views. It is Dörnyei that distinguishes
between Higgins’s and Markus and Nurius’s conceptualisations of the future-
oriented self dimensions in that ‘while the latter authors talk about multiple possible
selves, including, for example, more than one ideal self, Higgins talks about a single

integrativeness, he wrote in his research 2002 that:
the term may not so much be related to any actual, or metaphorical,
integration into an L2 community as to some more basic identification
process within the individual’s self-concept. Although further research is
needed to justify any alternative interpretation, we believe that rather than
13
viewing ‘integrativeness’ as a classic and therefore ‘untouchable’ concept,
scholars need to seek potential new conceptualizations and interpretations
that extend or elaborate on the meaning of the term without contradicting the
large body of relevant empirical data accumulated during the past four
decades. (Dörnyei & Csize ´r, 2002: 456)
It is obvious that deriving from the self theories, Dörnyei was ready to move
beyond integrativeness, which was first proposed by Gardner and brought about
numerous controversies among researchers mentioned above. After many years of
doing research with a lot of ups and downs, he has step by step approached the
secret of successful learners which he attributed to ‘their possession of a
superordinate vision that kept them on track’. He himself compared language
learning to the training of professional athletes whose career is considered to be
motivated by imagery and vision. In accordance with both empirical findings and
theoretical considerations, he reconceptualised L2 motivation as part of the
learner’s self system. Through the data collected and the new theoretical approach,
he was convinced that ‘future self-guides - more specifically, the ideal and the
ought selves - are central components of this system.’ (Dörnyei, 2009). In 2005,
after careful consideration for previous theories and his own research on L2
motivation, he decided that ‘L2 Motivational Self System’ was made up of the
following three components:
(1) Ideal L2 Self, which is the L2-specific facet of one’s ‘ideal self’: if the
person we would like to become speaks an L2, the‘ideal L2 self’ is a
powerful motivator to learn the L2 because of the desire to reduce the
discrepancy between our actual and ideal selves. Traditional integrative and