Motivation of Russian Students Towards the Learning of English

This paper seeks to analyze the attitudes and motivation for learning English of students in the city of Surgut, in the Russian Federation. The investigation was carried out in November 2013 by means of self-completion questionnaires distributed to 30 students, aged 13 to 17, who had studied English for at least two years in private language schools (although all of them had studied at least one foreign language within the Russian national education system). The students were divided into two main categories: students who were citizens of the Russian Federation from bilingual families (BF), such as Tatar, Bashkir, Ukrainian or others, and students from Russian monolingual families (MF). The results were analyzed from different motivational viewpoints, namely, achievement, instrumental, integrative, extrinsic, and intrinsic motivations. This methodology allowed the researcher to acquire a multi-dimensional perspective of what impelled Russian students to learn English, what they expected of that knowledge, and whether there were differences between the two groups. The results showed a high level of motivation amongst both genders of bilingual students and among girls from Russian monolingual families, while the results for non-bilingual boys were much more discreet. Although this research was carried out according to concrete standards of age and education, the results can enhance the scientific understanding of motivation for second-language learning in contexts where that second language is not necessary, used or even known by the community in its daily life, as well as the perception of language learning by monolingual and by bilingual individuals