ABSTRACT
There is a substantial body of research focusing on the linguistic analysis of language learner output in interactional tasks (as attested to by many contributions in this volume), but relatively less attention has been paid in the past to examining the psychological processes underlying student performance in interactive activities. This paper intends to add to this latter body of research by providing an analysis of one of the key learner aspects of interactional task performance, the under-researched issue of learners’ motivation to engage in the task. We will first review three motivational studies that have specifically focused on analyzing dyadic interactions, and then present the results of an empirical investigation examining motivational task appraisal. Although this study does not specifically focus on dyadic interaction but rather on the more general question on how performance, appraisal, and control are linked in language learners’ perceptions, we believe that some of the results can be meaningfully generalized to interactional tasks.
