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EXTRAMURAL ENGLISH ACTIVITIES AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNER DIFFERENCES
they are encouraged to do so by their teacher. Black (2009), for instance, points
out that research has shown that EEL learners in the USA are developing and
improving their foreign language skills by using different technological tools,
such as smartphones, personal computers, and the Internet, to communicate
and share information and content in English with others. Such activities
cater not only to the notion of functional practice advocated by Bialystok (1981)
but also provide an environment for L2 learning through digital environments
(Barton—Potts 2013). This is particularly true for social media (e.g., blogs, vlogs,
Facebook, etc.) and video games where learners of English are, in fact, real
users of English when engaging in different EE activities, as they consume and
compose content and interact with others in English.
Learners of English use English as a lingua franca when interacting with
friends and other people with different L1s (Crystal 2003, De Wilde et al. 2019,
Djigunovic 2018, Sauer—Ellis 2019, Sayer—Ban 2014, Sundqvist—Sylvén 2014,
Sylven-Sundgvist 2012). Such interactions are important sources of extramu¬
ral English and may motivate learners to invest more effort into learning
English. As a consequence, friendship orientation and intercultural contact
were chosen to be a component of this investigation because they are hypoth¬
esized to have an impact on EFL learners’ L2 learning motivation in the ex¬
tramural context, and there is virtually no such recent empirical investigation
in the EE context.
2.3.2.5 Perceived importance of the language
As Hungary is a relatively small country and the Hungarian language is spoken
by around 13 million people as the L1, the perceived importance of the given
L2 may play a significant role in the L2 learning motivation of Hungarian
people (Csizér—Lukacs 2010). Speakers are most likely to learn English as they
consider it an important asset in today’s globalized world. Widdowson (1997)
also highlights that English as an international language has gained more
significance than smaller local languages. Weger (2013: 89) pointed out that
through English language products, learners have the opportunity to “gain
access to international communities.” However, even though, in most cases,
the English language is not directly accessible in the learners’ immediate en¬
vironment, i.e., it is not spoken (Ryan 2006), it is often available through
English-language media products.
Csizér and Lukacs (2010) reported that Hungarian learners are aware of the
global and international role of English and the regional importance of German.
This increased importance of the English language is exemplified by the num¬
ber of Hungarians living in the United Kingdom, too. The number of Hungar¬
ian people residing and working in the UK in 2015 was around 86,000 (Moreh
+ 42 +