The Identification of Demotives in EFL University Students

Demotives, the opposite side of motives, dramatically affect EFL learners. The learners, once motivated to learn English, lose their interest and energy so that learning English would transform into a suffering and time-consuming task. The present study, conducted among payam-Nour1. University English students was an effort made to investigate whether the students apparently highly-motivated to learn English have experienced challenges demotivating them from learning English and if so, what are the major causes of demotivation/ discouragement –being prevalent among Payam Nour University English students? 60 junior English student – predominately female students were asked to write a short essay on their experiences of demotivation throughout their English studies. To derive authentic data, students received no prior orientation or pre-judgment on the issue and to avoid any difficulty in writing, they were asked to write in their own native language –i.e. Persian.