As outlined in Chapter 1, my role as a homeroom and classroom teacher for first-grade learners at the educational institution in which I was employed in Japan provided a unique opportunity to explore the language learning motivation of newly arrived students while also working to make their EFL studies more relevant. While the literature confirms that low motivation is a widespread problem in Japan, it also helps to establish the need for studies that investigate motivation in context in the language learning classroom. The review of the literature further served to inform the design of a research study that explored my students' motivation and views of a future English self from their own perspectives.

Considering the interactive, dynamic nature of motivation proposed in the last two chapters, a research approach based on positivist understandings that tested hypotheses about fixed variables would not provide the texture of subjective experience in which I was interested. Moreover, through uncovering an overwhelming majority of quantitative research in Japan, the review of the literature firmed up my conviction that a qualitative study could add much to situated understandings of language learning motivation in this context. Although conducted in different educational settings, the possible-self interventions (Hock et al., 2006; Oyserman et al., 2006) suggested the possibility of very positive outcomes for the participants. My review of the strategic implications of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011) inspired me to consider ways of introducing change-action to the classroom to foster similar positive outcomes and deepen my understanding of the motivation of my own students.

I developed three research questions at the beginning of the study: (1) How do the participants express their ideas of an English-using self at the commencement of the study? (2) What ideas of an English-using self emerge among the participants from experience of the classroom? (3) In what ways do shared understandings of an English-using self appear to affect the participants' motivation to learn English?