The Research into High School Students’ Motivation
for Learning English
高中生英语学习动机的调查研究
学 生 姓 名：
学 号： 2009030402
系 部： 外语系
指 导 教 师：
运城学院
2013年5月
Contents
The Research into High School Students’ Motivation
for Learning English
Abstract:In second language acquisition, motivation has important influence on the whole process and output of the foreign language learning. English learning motivation research began very late in China. In senior middle school, a few students have lost their motivation. Therefore, the research of this paper is aimed at studying the motivation of the high school students and we are trying to answer the following questions: Firstly, what is the main trend of the English study motivation of all students? Secondly, what is the difference in motivation among top, middle and bottom students? And what are the strategies? Thirdly, what is the difference in motivation between boy and girl students? And what are the strategies?
In order to fulfill the research purposes, the author has conducted a survey among 100 students in Linyi Middle School to investigate their English learning motivation. The result of the survey is summed up as follows: Firstly, the main trends of the English learning motivation are practical value, attribution, interest, the influence of important people, the sense of achievement, task motivation and praise or punishment, at the top of which is practical value. Secondly, in the part of the influence of the important, the middle students are affected most; in the item of utility value, students in the top are affected most, followed by the bottom students; in the items of sense of achievement and task motivation, their result is top, middle and bottom students; in the part of praise and punishment, the bottom students tend to avoid punishment and gain praise. Finally, girl students have greater motivation than boy students, but the motivation of boy students has higher stability than that of girls.
According to the survey, the author comes up with some strategies on English learning motivation.
Key words:English learning motivation;utility value; attribution; interest
高中生英语学习动机的调查研究
摘要:在二语习得中，动机对外语学习的全过程和结果起着非常重要的影响。在中国，外语学习动机的研究起步比较晚。在高中阶段已经有相当一部分学生失去了英语学习动机，因此，本论文的研究对象是高中生英语学习动机，回答以下几个问题：（1）当前高中生的主流英语学习动机是什么？（2）优、中、差学生的英语学习动机差异及其针对的策略是什么？（3）男、女学生的英语学习动机差异及其针对的策略是什么？
为了研究高中生的英语学习动机，作者在临猗中学做了问卷调查，以一百名学生作为此次调查的对象。调查结果显示：（1）当前学生的主流动机依次是实用价值、归因、兴趣、重要的他人影响、成就感、任务动机、奖励和惩罚，以实用价值为目的的工具型动机居于首位。（2）在重要的他人影响一项中，中等生受他人的影响最大，其次是优生和差生；在实用价值一项中依次是优生、差生和中等生；成就感和任务动机依次是优、中、差学生；在奖励和惩罚一项中，差生更倾向于趋奖惩罚的心态。（3）女生的各项动机平均值显著地高于男生；男生的学习动机比女生的要稳定。
根据调查结果，作者提出了一些有关英语学习动机的策略。
关键词:英语学习动机；实用价值；归因；兴趣
With the development of the science and technology, the cooperation and communication between China and other countries are becoming more and more frequent. As an international language, English is widely used and commonly taught as a foreign language in China. But it is not easy for people to learn English, which is a well-developed and complicated language. English learning is influenced by many factors, such as learner’s own factors and learning environment. Among these factors, motivation could devote a lot to learner’s success or failure in English learning motivation.
It is a burdensome task to do research on motivation, because motivation is dynamic in nature, which varies from one moment to next depending on the learning task or context. The author only investigated on three aspects: the main trend of the English learning motivation of all students; the difference in motivation among top, middle and bottom students; the difference in motivation between boy and girl students. The author hoped that the study could make a lot of contribution to students’ learning and teachers’ teaching in Linyi Middle School.
Motivation, one of the important factors in English learning, influences the students’ learning effects greatly. If teachers can not completely understand their students’ learning motivation, they might take the same ways to deal with different situations. Therefore, the learning and teaching effects might be unsatisfactory. The author investigated the types of students’ English learning motivation and analyzed the relationship between the types of motivation and the exam grades and the gender. The author collected some important data and tried to provide the teachers and students of Linyi Middle School with some valuable information on English learning motivation. Consequently, teachers can help students build up a proper learning motivation during their teaching, and finally get the achievement of promoting learning and teaching effects.
In Modern Chinese Dictionary, the explanation of motivation is: some ideas to impel human to be engaged in certain action. In the American Heritage Dictionary, the explanation is (1) the act or process of motivating; (2) something that motivates. While in the Practice of English Language Teaching, the explanation is: Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action. From the above explanation, motivation is actually a power, which can produce some kinds of feeling, impel and maintain some behavior and cause this behavior to advance as a psychological tendency. So we can conclude that motivation is an intrinsic thing and also can be stimulated and fostered.
From varied aspects, different people have different opinions on the definition of motivation. Motivation has been defined as the learner's orientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991). Gardner & Lambert (1999) first revealed the important role of motivation in overall learning process. It is the starting point for all kinds of learning where learners initially think about approaching the target subject. Motivation is also a series of changing cognitive developments, from forming attitudes of target subject to kinds of stimulated behaviors, both psychological and operational. Motivation not only determines whether a student will start well, but also runs through the whole learning process. "Learning requires the interplay of four essential components: motivation (wanting aspect), perception (noticing aspect), responding (doing aspect), and reinforcement (receiving aspect). If any component is neglected, learning will not take place"(Gardner & Lambert, 1999:68). Wen Qiufang(2001)said English motivation can be simply explained to the reasons and purposes of English learning. "Effort which learners put into learning a second language as a result of their need or desire to learn it is motivation", said Ellis(1990:515).Generally speaking, from different aspects motivation has different definitions. But most of us will acknowledge that there are three major components of motivation: goal, effort and sustenance.
Though many scholars study motivation, there has been no general agreement on definitions of motivation. The most widely accepted definition of motivation in second language acquisition is offered by Gardner(1985)who defines motivation as "the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitude toward learning the language". It means that students' motivation naturally has to do with their desire to participate in learning. Dornyei(1998:57)defines motivation as a "process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises, initiates action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby terminate action or until the planned outcome has been reached". From the above-mentioned definitions, the author's understanding of definition of motivation is that motivation is an internal power influenced by internal orientations, personal desire，and an external power affected by utilitarian purposes.
Lots of researchers and scholars have divided motivation into several types from different angles.
L2 language learning motivation research was started by Gardner and Lambert in Canada in 1950s. Gardner analyzes L2 learning motivation from the angle of social-cognitive. He thinks that L2 learning motivation should include four aspects: a goal, effortful behavior, a desire to attain the goal and attitude. Gardner and Lambert create the "social-educational model", and make the well-known distinction between integrative and instrumental orientations in motivation. Integrative motivation means that learners have positive attitude towards the target language group and desire to integrate into it, and they are interested in culture of the target language. Instrumental motivation means learning the language for the potential pragmatic gains of target language proficiency, such as passing an exam or getting a better job or a higher salary.
On the basis of the above motivation theories and classification of motivation, a new classification of motivation is showed in the field of motivation research, which divides motivation into internal motivation and external motivation according to the source of motivation. First, it is necessary to study subtypes of these two motivations in detail.
Internal motivation comes from the inside of an individual. That is, a person might be motivated by interest in a language or learning a language, sense of achievement, responsibility, opportunity for advance and attribution.
1) Interest
Interest means one person has internal love and curiosity of the target language, the target-language culture and its people. It not only means just interest in the target language itself and the culture but also means interest in the process of learning.Albert Einstein says that: "Interest is the best teacher". And interest plays a quite important role in the process of learning English. Learners with high motivation tend to be more successful in learning. High school students are full of natural curiosity, if teachers can arouse students' natural curiosity, students may gain good results. Gardner & Lambert(1999) think that the source of motivation can be from interest which will then fuel the desire to learn and continue to influence the learner’s conscious decision to act and the effort that they will put into learning.
2) Sense of Achievement
Sense of achievement means the fact that learners get satisfaction and a sense of success and become confident in their ability in the process of learning English.
3) Responsibility
Responsibility refers to the fact that learners feel that they should study the language well for their parents or the society, because they think it is their duty.
4) Opportunity for Advance
Opportunity for advance refers to students’ desire to get an opportunity to accept further education and to continue to learn, such as a chance of going into college and so on.
5) Attribution
Attribution refers to that people make their perceived success or failure due to some reason. The perception of event, instead of the event itself, influences people’s behavior. When asked to explain something or someone’s behavior, people will give some reasons on individual (internal), or on the environment (external).
External motivation is caused by the motivating force from outside of the learner, and these external factors mainly refer to reward/punishment, utility value, the influence of important people and task motivation.
1) Reward/Punishment
Reward is what learners get when they make progress in the process of learning, such as prizes, good evaluation, money, or something they want. Punishment is the act that be conducted when learner fail to do something proper, such as failing to do homework, or disobeying the discipline of the classroom, and so on.
2) Utility value
Utility value means the fact that learners try their best to learn language for their pragmatic purposes, such as passing examinations, or getting a job, and so on.
3) The influence of important people
The influence of important people refers to that learners’motivation is often affected by their surrounding persons, such as friends, parents, teachers or classmates.
4) Task motivation
Learning tasks and motivation determine the students how to learn. Task motivation refers to the motivation when accomplishing a particular task, changing with different tasks.
Because of the complicacy and multifaceted nature of the motivation, there have been a lot of theories about it. Among the different theories, the most influential ones are Gardner's motivation theory and Dornyei's three-level categorization.
Gardner and Lambert create social-educational model which is one of the most influential models in English language learning. In this model, Gardner identifies many factors that are interrelated when a learner learns a second language. It "centers on four classes of variables: the social milieu, individual differences, language acquisition contexts and outcomes"(Gardner, 1985:205). The social milieu refers to the environment in which learners are situated. Individual differences include the variables of language aptitude, motivation, intelligence and situational anxiety. There are two settings or contexts in which learning takes place, that is, formal instruction in the classroom and unstructured language acquisition in natural setting. Linguistic outcomes refer to language skills and actual language knowledge.
Though Gardner's social-educational model is influential, researchers of learning motivation have questioned Gardner's theory on motivation because of its insufficient emphasis on school and classroom situation since 1980s. Therefore they need a more pragmatic, education-centered approach to motivation researches, which would be in accordance with the perceptions of practicing teachers and which would also be in line with the current results of mainstream educational psychological research. During the 1990s, Dornyei's three-level categorization becomes influential. Dornyei's theory is typically for foreign language. Dornyei attempts to make sense of the different components involved in second language motivation by proposed the three-level categorization. The three levels are language level, learner level and learning situation level (Dornyei, 2005:187). In this model, the language level contains various orientations and motives related to aspects of the second language, such as the culture and the community, and the usefulness of the language. This will make influence on the goals that learners set and choices they make. The learner level involves individual characteristics that the learner brings to the learning task. Key features of this level are need for achievement and self-confidence. Finally, the situation level includes components related to the course, the teacher and the group dynamics.
The participants of the research are 100 students of Linyi Middle School in Linyi, Yuncheng. By the time the study was conducted, all of them have learned English for at least seven years, four years at primary school and three years at junior school. Therefore, most of them have their own special English learning motivation.
Within the scope of research instruments, there are mainly two aspects: interview on students’ English score and questionnaire on English learning motivation.
The interview is a useful technique for collecting data, which is complementary to the questionnaire.
The data for this section is collected from two English teachers in Linyi Middle School. The author collects the students’ English achievement tables and analyses the students’ achievement. Through this process, the author will know which one is top student, which one is middle student and which one is bottom student.
The questionnaire is on the basis of Jiang Yanfu’s (2005) questionnaire and part of Williams and Burden’s questionnaire. This questionnaire includes forty-one questions which are the possible factors of English learning motivation. And it can be dividedinto seven parts.
Table 1 Topic Distribution
The data for this section is collected for 100 Grade Two students in Linyi Middle School. And the questionnaires were collected immediately after the students finished them. Some problems were explained ahead of time by the author in case of students’ misunderstanding.
In the field of second language acquisition, motivation has been considered to be one of the main factors in determining learning outcomes. Motivation concerns the direction and magnitude of human behavior. English learning motivation not only includes choosing language learning, but also involves sustaining efforts and persistence. The research of this paper is aimed at studying the motivation of high school students and we will answer the following questions: what is the main trend of the English learning motivation of all students; what is the difference in motivation among top, middle and bottom students? And what are the strategies; what is the difference in motivation between boy and girl students? And what are the strategies.
Table 2 The Results of the Questionnaire
From table 5, we can first know that utility value is the main trend, which can be seen from the 25th to the 34th questions. Then, attribution ranges the next and 74% of students choose “Yes”. Interest takes up the third place. These four questions can embody this point from the 19th to the 24th questions. Meanwhile, the next is the influence of important people, which accounts for about 57.4%. After this point comes the sense of achievement from the 38th to the 40th questions, which makes up 53%. The task motivation takes up the sixth position from the 14th to the 18th questions. Although praise and punishment ranges the last, it shows influence to some extent.
By analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire and the interview, this chapter first discusses the main trend of the English learning motivation of all students. And then, the difference in motivation among top, middle and bottom students will be discussed, and some specific strategies are explored. Finally, the author will discuss the difference in motivation between boy and girl students.
The mainstream motivation of the current student is utility value, attribution, interest, the influence of the important, the sense of achievement, task motivation, praise and punishment in turn. The instrumental motivation whose purpose is utility value is in the first place. Su Dingfang (1996:37) said: “In our country, perhaps most learners’ motivation is instrumental, except a small number of students has a comprehensive motivation due to their special family background or interest”. Attribution is in the second place, while praise and punishment is in the last. This may be associated with the general characteristics development of high school students. Because the self-consciousness and thinking capability development of high school students is mature, the character development reaches a relatively mature level accordingly. So they can carry on the correct attribution for their own learning, and they don’t value teachers’ praise and punishment or rely on parents’ pressure. They can realize that learning is their own business. The third place is interest. We can know interest is one of the important factors influencing students learning. Most of the students are full of curiosity to different language, culture and new expressive way, and they hope to have the ability to grasp all kinds of language knowledge. So in second language teaching, improving the students’ interest is extremely necessary and entirely possible. The influence of the important is in the fourth place. This shows that teachers should set a good example, create a relaxed, comfortable language learning environment, and explain the importance of learning tasks with profound knowledge. And in the fifth and sixth place respectively are the sense of achievement and task motivation, which are two kinds of highly unstable motivation. Su Dingfang (1996) said: “Due to the special system in China, in teaching classroom students learning task motivation as well as the learning motivation, which is the transformation of success, have more function and meaning to foreign language teaching”. Therefore, high school foreign language content should be close to the life. Not only language practice should be vivid, humorous, challenging, but also students’ progress should cause our attention, which make them produce the sense of achievement.
We might think that the higher grades, the stronger the motivation intensity, namely, the difference in motivation of top, middle, bottom students is decreased trend. But the result is not at all.
Table 3 The Percentage of Top, Middle and Bottom Students
In the part of the influence of the important, middle students are most influenced by others, followed by top and bottom students. Middle students causing teachers’ attention may be associated with school’s education rewards and punishment system to teachers. Grades of top students are stable and teachers generally worry about them a little. They feel teachers’ attention to them for granted. In order to prove themselves, teachers promote the middle students vigorously and pay attention to them, talk to them. Gradually, middle students think that teachers’ encouragement is very important and put it as part of their English learning motivation. As long as the bottom students do not violate principles, teachers can turn a blind eye to them. Thus, they appear very indifferent to losing the teachers’ feeling.
In the part of utility value, the top, bottom and middle students are in turn. This shows that the current high school students learning motivation closely relates to the social needs and a social learning motivation enrich and develop continuously. At present China is gradually into the global economy. People whose English level is high, has an advantage in the fierce competition for jobs (Jiang Yanfu, 2005).
In the part of task motivation and the sense of achievement, the motivations of the top, middle and bottom students take on a trend of decline. This shows that motivation is the main factor influencing the second language or foreign language learning and higher scores result in high motivation. Bruner said: “The best motivation is that students has a kind of intrinsic interest in learned material and has happiness and self-confidence in learning and discovery, which leads to high task motivation and a sense of achievement”.
The bottom students tend to reward and avoid punishment, which is higher than middle and top students. This illustrates that the scores of the middle and top students are stable and they are a little accustomed to the teachers’ praise and encouragement. And encouragement in the form of reward, such as praise, encouragement, acceptance and immediate feedback of satisfactory learning results, can stimulate the bottom student correct English learning motivation.
The trend of attribution is: the top > the bottom > the middle. This shows that top, bottom and middle students make a right attribution about their academic record, but in terms of effort and learning strategy there are some differences. The top students can make the correct attribution and their grades due to their own learning talent and hard work, which is to our expectation. But the bottom students’ attribution percentage is greater than the middle students and they attribute their grades to the efforts, despite the bottom students do not work harder than the middle students in actual learning, which reflects the bottom in concept and learning behavior is inconsistent. Due to the success of past experience, the middle students are more likely to think that they have talent of learning English, love English, are willing to spend more time in learning English. So they do not think they study hard and they think that there is no necessary link between accomplishment and hard work.
In the part of the influence of the important, the middle students are most influenced by teachers, while the bottom students are most influenced by classmates. The bottom students can carry on the correct attribution for their own learning, but they can’t put their attributional concept into practice.
In terms of English learning, the relationship between teachers and students is very important to improve academic performance. Sawhney(1998)found that students who accept teachers’ guidance more in class can achieve better grades. The good relationship between teachers and students can stimulate motivation. Williams & Burden very emphasize the key role of teachers, especially in improving the learning atmosphere, cultivating the self-confidence, developing the student individuality, cultivating the sense of belonging, using learning strategies and developing the students’ autonomous learning ability. Teachers should improve their professional quality and make a positive evaluation to the students’ work, test scores and class speaking. Praise and punishment should be applied correctly. The major role of praise in classroom teaching is to strengthen students’ correct behavior and to provide feedback about students’ behavior expectations.
Williams & Burden (2000:126) said: “A healthy competition, beyond oneself, and the rivalry between the classmates can stimulate the learning motivation in the short term, and enhance classroom learning enthusiasm”. The relationship between classmates is an important factor in affecting the classroom learning atmosphere, stimulating the learning enthusiasm of students and cultivating the students’ self-confidence. Therefore, students should help each other, especially, help those students whose basic skills are not very good, so as to enhance students’ sense of belonging. At the same time, students should keep competitive consciousness and transcend themselves constantly.
Achievement prompts people to pursue a higher target under the condition of society and a higher level of its objectives and encourages people to pursue success and avoid failure. When someone is hit by the setback, he will lose the confidence and his motivation will reduce, which influences subsequent learning. And successful experience can increase self-efficacy, which can make a subjective judgment on whether one can successfully go on a certain achievement motivation. Students with poor learning initiative are too lazy to think, even very simple question. This is because they seldom have successful experience. In the class, teachers can often leave some simple questions to the students, encourage them to answer this question and let them enjoy the joy of success.
Table 4 The Percentage of Girl and Boy Students
The percentage of every motivation among girls is obviously higher than that among boys, except the fact that the percentage of two motives praise and punishment and the influence of the important is near between girls and boys.
Boys’ reliance on teachers is bigger than that of girls in others’ influence. We think most English teachers are women, while women teachers have aptitude for concerning about boys. Girls do not attach much importance to teachers’ concern about themselves and only expect teachers to illustrate knowledge clearly. They are more likely to be influenced by classmates, that is to say, good friends and rivals exert much influence on them.
In utility value, boys and girls put emphasis on pragmatism of English learning. However, in terms of choosing career, requirements of girls are higher than boys’. Therefore, girls put the utility value to a high position.
The percentage of girls is higher than boys’ in interest. Jia Guanjie (2003:16) said: “Internal factors are performing a role among foreign-language learners can form internal motivations, which are from their interest in doing something. Foreign-language learning activity is the purpose of learners’ pursuit, for example inquisitiveness, curiosity, interest, habit or the representation of self, etc. From the questionnaire, we can see that some girls like English itself, some want to broaden their view and some aspire to strengthen their abilities. The English learning process itself makes girl students feel satisfied and confident, who are basically not influenced by outside factors, while boys are more willing to broaden their cultural view.
In terms of task motivation, the percentage of girls is 78% and the percentage of boys is 56%. It embodies the phenomenon that girls attach more importance to learning process than boys.
In the part of the sense of achievement, the percentage of girl students is 79% and the percentage of boys is 62%. We can see that English marks of girls are usually higher than boys’ in junior school. It gives girl students the courage to work hard. Therefore, girls are more confident than boys.
In attribution, the percentage of girls is 65% and the percentage of boys is 51%. Girls are more prone to attribute good grades to effort. It brings much benefit to girls’ study. So teachers need to elaborate an attribution in training especially for boys.
In the whole, boys have more stable learning motivations than girls. This is perhaps because girls have a more serious polarization than boys. Once boys form stable learning motivations, it will promote learning better.
Combining the culture with teaching trains boys to be interested in national culture of the target language. Language has rich cultural connotations. In foreign language teaching, culture refers to the language of national history, geography, local conditions and customs, traditions, lifestyles, literature and art, behavior standards, values, etc. To contact and understand English national culture is beneficial to train their consciousness of the world. In the class, teachers can introduce some cultural knowledge about Britain and America and cultivate students’ interest in the culture of the target language country.
Boys depend more on teachers. Therefore, teachers should help them to establish learning objectives and develop a study plan. Target is both a student’s effort direction, and criteria of evaluating students and a sign of promoting students. Only when students accept the goals, are ready to achieve these goals, and are willing to efforts and have the ability to achieve these goals, they will reap the benefits of learning and produce a sense of achievement.
From the view of students, the author mainly provides some strategies of motivating English learning motivation.
1) Students cultivate and sustain their interest in English by reading some good poems and essays in English, or listening English music, or writing diary in English, or listening English speech of some celebrities, which can enlarge the scope of knowledge.
2) Students communicate with classmates who are good at English about English learning strategies and English knowledge, which contributes to strengthening friendship of each other. Students learn to cooperate with classmates and solve problems encountered during the process of learning English, which is helpful of leading to mutual-trust.
3) Students set short-term goals and long-term goals on English study. If achieving one goal, students can award themselves properly. Once students achieve the goal, they will have a sense of achievement. On the contrary, they can punish themselves, such as writing English words 100 times. And they can invite several classmates to participate in and monitor each other.
4) Students learn how to remember more vocabularies. Knowing many vocabularies contributes to contacting more English knowledge and enriching knowledge. There are many methods to remember words, such as remembering words by associating something relative, or by root and affix, for example, complete, competition, competitive, competitor.
5) Students talk with parents and teachers if coming across setback in the process of learning English.According to individual situation, students change expectation properly by communicating with parents and teachers.
6) Students communicate with persons who have gone to college or go to internet to gain information of utility value of English in society, which making students know clearly which aspect of English need to be strengthened.
Although the data of the survey shows that internal motivation plays a more important role in English learning motivation than external motivation, both of motivation exist in the process of English learning. So from the angle of teachers, the author mainly focuses on strategies for teachers to motivate internal motivation and external motivation of high school students.
1) Creating a cooperative and communicative classroom climate. Classroom climate is an important factor which influences teaching and learning effectiveness. As a result that it creates an environment which encourages both motivations. There are several concrete strategies are provided.
Making warming-up interesting, "Good beginning is the half of success". Teachers can use interesting opening words and vivid stories as well as songs in movie or TV, some listening materials in the ELT classroom which can attract students' interest of learning. Therefore, when teaching the text, teachers can use kinds of teaching aids, such as recorders, simple pictures or real objects (Gui Shichun, 1991).
Organizing some English activities by playing games, English is factually a language as an instrument of communicating. So the teacher can organize teaching by some communicative activities to draw students’ attention, such as dialogue, reciting some interesting English poems or essays, holding English speech competition, and so on. These activities will contribute to cooperation and communication and mutual-trust among students.
2) Teachers need to use different kinds of teaching methods to cultivate and motivate English learning motivation by arousing enthusiasm of learning and improving learning ability of students in high schools. English teaching syllabus of fulltime system middle school regulates: “The aim of English teaching is to make students acquire English basic knowledge and the communicative ability by adopting English according to exercises of listening, speaking, reading and writing to stimulate students' learning interest and make students form a good habit of studying” (Gao Yihong, 2003:90). So teachers can do much in specific teaching methods to further reinforce motivation and help learners to learn and practice. Teachers are the creators of teaching methods, which means that they should be provided with multiple choices to decide how to teach students. What kind of teaching methods should be used to stimulate students greatly? The answer is that not a single method can do it. Every teaching method has its advantages and disadvantages. Teachers need to select methods according to the students' needs and the learning situation. For example, in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), it aims to provide students with chances to use their English for communicative purpose. It seems to be effective to cultivate learners' communicative competence. However, as a result of so many factors (as the exam-oriented educational system, large class size, teachers' language proficiency and culture), it is constrained in Chinese junior middle school English teaching and learning classroom. Therefore, some English teachers have to develop their own locally proper version of the communicative approach to integrate communicative activities and non-communicative activities together in English class. When learning dialogue and text, communicative teaching method is adopted; when learning new grammar, grammar-translation teaching method is used. Because of the large class size, pair work and group work are often preferred. It is an encouraging implication for teachers to make full use of the advantages of each teaching method according to the different situation.
3) Keeping a good relationship between teachers and students. The data of the survey show that some students like English lessons because they like English teachers, so English teachers can create a good relationship with students. First, English teachers should pay attention to her /his image, and his/her body language in ELT classroom. Second, English teachers should love students, respect everyone, and treat them equally, which can give students a sense of safe and make students want to communicate. Thirdly, as a manager, good teachers should understand to what extent student has mastered the language and help students set short-term goals which contributes to motivating students' motivation incessantly and long-term goals which contributes to sustaining students' internal motivation. If students get the goals, they will have a sense of achievement.
4) English teachers also teach students learning strategies to help students learn English effectively by telling them methods of enhancing reading skill, listening skill, writing skill and speaking skill. The quantity of vocabulary is the basis of learning English well. More words students acknowledge more English knowledge they accept. Pronouncing correctly is also important and is helpful for remembering words. Students have different problems of English, according to students' different characteristics, teachers can provide different suggestions for them.
5) English teachers make use of feedback information. Teachers can further enhance students' learning motivation by making students know their learning effect in time, including seeing the effect that what they have learned is adopted in reality, the study achievement, and the keys of answering questions. Teachers' feedback often in the form of reward or punishment has a great motivating effect and reflection influence, as it provides students with instructive information that enable them to identify specific aspects of their performance. According to the result feedback, students can realize their progress, and then enhance learning attitudes and learning methods, and the willing of study hard will be stimulated, too.
At the same time, students can realize their shortcomings, and then, they make a decision of overcoming shortcomings and desire to go forward again. Therefore, teachers should be careful and considerate to give proper feedback to enhance students' learning. And the sooner teachers tell students feedback results, the better the effect is.
As is known to all, it is not easy for Chinese students to learn English well, and most of students spend much energy and time on it, but get little effect. New standard curriculum requires teachers to pay attention to cultivating students’ emotional attitude and not just to teach English for passing examinations. Learning motivation is a significant factor in the foreign language learning. In China, the main subject of the study is university students and we lack systematic investigation of the primary and middle school students. As we all know, students start to learn English from primary school or middle school, the motivation of which process is very essential. This research of the paper is aimed at studying the motivation of senior middle school students.
In the second chapter of this paper, the author briefly discussed the definition and classification of motivation and Gardner’s and Dornyei’s motivation theory.
In order to understand the English learning motivation of high school students comprehensively, we carried on the questionnaire survey to the students. Through the classification, we know the main trend of the English study motivation of all students,the difference in motivation among top, middle and bottom students and the difference in motivation between boy and girl students. In the results of the questionnaire survey, we found that the main trends of the English motivation are practical value, attribution, interest, the influence of the important, the sense of achievement, task motivation and praise or punishment. In the part of task motivation and sense of achievement, their sequence is top, middle and bottom students. In the item of the influence of important people, students in the middle are influenced most. In the part of utility value, top students are affected most, followed by bottom students. In the item of praise or punishment, the bottom students tend to gain praise and avoid punishment. Female students have greater motivation than male students, but the motivation of male students has higher stability than that of females. According to the survey, the author puts forward many methods about how to stimulate the English learning motivation of high school students.
Motivation is a complex area, which is influenced by many factors. Different people have different motivation. Due to the limitation of the author’s professional knowledge and the perspectives concerned were not so complete, so the width and depth of the results were far from satisfaction. In addition, students’ language learning is affected by many factors, such as curriculum, textbook compile and environment. The survey only focused on some types of English learning motivation and could not properly control other possibly factor.
It would be impossible for me to finish this thesis without the help from my supervisor, Professor Li. Her detailed comments as well as insightful suggestions and persistent encouragement have improved this thesis immeasurably.
My most sincere thanks go to Miss Li for her invaluable instruction and guidance.
I would also acknowledge the help from the teachers and students of Linyi Middle School in Linyi for they offered me the opportunities to have access to their classrooms as a researcher.
I should also record a debt to all my other mentors during my total four years’ study in Yuncheng University. I have benefited a lot from their lecturers and instruction.
Last but not least, my special thanks go to my parents and my friends for their continuous love, care and support.
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调查问卷
为了帮助教师改进教学，帮助你更有效地学习英语，我们需要准确了解你的学习动机，请你协助我们完成本调查。希望大家给予合作。
个人信息
1、 性别： ______
2、 年龄： ______
3、 成绩：期中英语考试成绩 _____
期末英语考试成绩 _____
下面是中学生常见的英语学习理由，请看明每句话的意思，然后根据个人实际情况做出最符合自己情况的回答，请选择A是或B否来描绘自己的学习动机。请你在认为合适的选项上画上对钩，谢谢大家的配合。
1、 我喜欢英语老师这个人（他/她的外貌、气质、说话和举止方式）。
A、是 B、否
2、 英语老师热情、活泼、沉稳、幽默。 A、是 B、否
3、 我欣赏英语老师的人品（敬业，尊重学生）。 A、是 B、否
4、 我钦佩老师的英语水平（只是渊博）。 A、是 B、否
5、 老师认识我，老师总是提问我。 A、是 B、否
6、 老师能对我的作业及考试成绩进行及时反馈。A、是 B、否
7、 老师总能对我的学习过程（上课认真听讲、积极发言）做出评价。
A、是 B、否
8、老师总说我能学会英语（鼓励我）。 A、是 B、否
9、英语老师对我的期望很高，我为老师而学。 A、是 B、否
10、我喜欢英语老师的上课方式（讲课清楚明了、用一些清楚相关的例子）。
A、是 B、否
11、我的好朋友英语很棒，这对我影响很大。 A、是 B、否
12、我暗自竞争的对手英语很棒，我不想输给他/她。 A、是 B、否
13、我们班上的英语学习气氛浓厚，不学习会掉队。 A、是 B、否
14、在英语课上我能表现出自己的特长（我听力好或口语好，阅读能力强）。
A、是 B、否
15、在英语课上，我可以经常和老师和同学互动。 A、是 B、否
16、我喜欢英语教材（英语教材趣味性强、贴近生活）。 A、是 B、否
17、学英语能让我感到快乐，感到在英语课上我学到了东西，记住新单词，读懂英语文章或用英语完成一件作品后，我就有成就感。 A、是 B、否
18、我喜欢富有挑战性的生活，我觉得外语学习任务富有挑战性。
A、是 B、否
19、我喜欢英语，觉得英语好听，写出来好看，讲起来神气（感兴趣）。
A、是 B、否
20、英语帮助自己更深刻地了解自己的母语，更深刻地理解自己的语言结构和功能。 A、是 B、否
21、为了和外国人交谈或上网浏览英语信息。 A、是 B、否
22、为了今后借助英语能了解异国文化、风俗和人情。 A、是 B、否
23、为了能欣赏英语名著、名曲和原版电影及电脑游戏。 A、是 B、否
24、我想和英国国家的人交朋友。 A、是 B、否
25、为了英语合格能顺利地高中毕业。 A、是 B、否
26、学好英语，找一份好工作。 A、是 B、否
27、为了考上大学。 A、是 B、否
28、为了今后出国学习准备。 A、是 B、否
29、遇到其它国家的人能够表达自己。 A、是 B、否
30、为了提高个人今后社交能力和资本。 A、是 B、否
31、为了朋友间有更好的交流语言。 A、是 B、否
32、为了提高个人的教育程度（提高个人修养）。A、是 B、否
33、英语是未来国际通用语言，中国人普遍觉得英语是很重要的语言。
A、是 B、否
34、为了在这个世界上生存，需要英语来做事。 A、是 B、否
35、我父母中至少有一人会用/常用英语，在这些方面常给我提出要求，或在英语上常给我帮助。 A、是 B、否
36、迫不得已——受家长、老师强迫。 A、是 B、否
37、为了获得家长、老师的赞扬和奖励。 A、是 B、否
38、我在初中英语学得很好，在高中我仍旧有学习的欲望。A、是 B、否
39、我觉得自己适合学英语/有语言天赋，准能学好外语（自信）。
A、是 B、否
40、我能坚持不懈地学习英语，有课前预习，课外阅读的习惯。A、是 B、否
41、最近一次我英语考试成绩高，对我鼓励很大，我认为只要努力，就能把英语学好。 A、是 B、否
尚未列入在内的英语学习的其它理由：______________________________。
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