ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by critically considering the notion of student voice, and by problematizing the limited role this notion has played in language motivation research to date. The chapter explores qualitative focus group data to draw the learner’s voice into the field of language learning motivation. In so doing, it provides a valuable perspective in a field that has been largely dominated by quantitative psychometric surveys of motivation. Data from 72 children who participated in focus groups across the different medium of instruction settings is thematically presented and discussed, exploring the extent to which features of learners’ macro, meso, and micro contexts emerge as motivational influences in their accounts. Given the central role attributed to learner agency in language education, including the learner voice in a discussion of their motivations is of particular significance.
