Comparison of motivational level and motivational factors retrieved from Possible Selves theory and L2 Motivational Self System among Chinese and Lebanese Persian Learners

The key role of motivational factors in L2/FL learning is already acknowledged and knowledge of motivational attributes of language learners is very important in adopting appropriate teaching methods and compilation of more effective educational resources. The study aimed to compare the motivational attributes of Chinese and Lebanese Persian learners based onL2 Motivational Self System theory and the Possible Selves theory. For this purpose, two groups of 33 students were selected from Persian language teaching center of Qazvin. Theresearch instrument was a 36 item questionnaire which drew on the works of Tagouchi et al. (2009), Papi and Teimuri (2012) and Atarsharghi and Akbari (2019) with some modifications. Finally, 66 questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS 22 software. The results showed that there were significant differencesbetween Chinese and Lebanese learners in all of the motivational factors, except for anxiety, and the motivational level of Chinese students was higher than the other group. Regardingthe anxiety factor, there was no significant difference between the two groups. ForChinese students, themaximum and the minimum obtained indexes related to the ideal L2 self and the anxiety, respectively. In the case of Lebanese learners, themaximum and the minimum obtained indexes related to theprevention oriented factors and the ideal L2 self, respectively.