중학생들의 영어 숙달도와 동기 및 사회적 거리와의 상관관계

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between motivation and English proficiency and between social distance and English proficiency within the environment of the Korean middle school. Two hypotheses were postulated as follows: 1) There would be a positive correlation between learners' motivation and English proficiency. but a negative correlation between learners' perceived social distance and English proficiency; 2) There would be significant differences between the motivation variable scores and the social distance variable scores in both the higher and the lower groups. To test these hypotheses. ninety five middle school students were selected as subjects, and then two motivation variables-instrumental motivation (SM) and integrative motivation (TM) - and four social distance variables-distance between Self and Koreans (S-K), between Self and Americans (S-A), between Koreans and Americans (K-A), and Dominance (DOM) were investigated. The results showed that 1) four social distance variables and proficiency resulted unexpectedly in a positive correlation; 2) In the total group, SM and proficiency were positively correlated; 3) Between the higher and the lower groups, there were significant differences in the variables of SM, K-A, DOM, and S-K. but no significant differences in the variables of S-A, and TM; and 4) In both the higher and the lower groups, SM and DOM were positively correlated. But SM, S-A and K-A were negatively correlated.