The Impact of Tourism on Language Attitude and Learning Motivation

Tourism as a means of change and innovation has been broadly admitted to have a significant role in the economic, cultural, political, and social status of the people in a society. This research investigates the role of language tourism, a new concept in TEFL and tourism industry on the learners’ attitudes towards English and their motivation in learning EFL. To achieve the goal of the study, a 47-item Farsi version questionnaire adapted from AMTB (Gardner, 1985) was administered to 65 intermediate students divided into two groups of control and experimental, studying English in an extensive course in Iran. After the treatment on the experimental group which was composed of 12 one-day English language tours during the semester, the data analysis revealed that the students’ attitudes toward English and their motivation in learning EFL have been promoted significantly through tourism- more specifically: language tourism.