激发大学生英语学习动机的策略.doc

The Strategies for Stimulating College Students’ Motivation in English Learning

The Strategies for Stimulating College Students’ Motivation in English Learning

Abstract

Since the 21st century, the era of knowledge economy, the focus of English education has been transferred from “teaching” to “learning”, and Englsih teachers are also paying more attention to role of the personality characteristics of students in the English learning. Motivation is an important and indispensable variable influencing college students’ academic achievement in English learning. Therefore, the college teachers should not only recognize the present situation of college students’ motivation in English learning, but also clearly understand the factors on influencing their motivation in English learning. Besides, based on the motivation theories, the college teachers should also adopt corresponding teaching strategies in accordance with the respective situations of students so as to stimulate students’ learning motivation with some certain plans and goals, and inspire students to learn English actively and initiatively.
Key words: academic motivation; college English teaching; motivation theory; stimulation; strategy

摘 要

21世纪是知识经济的时代，英语教育工作的重心由“教” 转向“学”。英语教育者也越来越注重学生的个性特征在英语学习中的作用。动机是影响大学生英语学习成绩的因素中不容忽视的一个重要变量。因而，大学教师应该要认清大学生英语学习动机的现状，并清楚了解学生影响英语学习动机的因素，此外，教师还应根据大学生各自的具体情况，以动机理论为基础，运用相应教学策略有计划、有目的地激发大学生学习动机，从而使其愿意主动积极地学习英语。
关键词：学习动机；大学英语教学；动机理论；激发；策略
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1. Introduction
1.1 Research background of the thesis
Since the 21st century, the era of knowledge economy, foreign language education has been transferred from “teaching” to “learning”. Teachers should focus their attention on shaping students’ new-style personality rather than impart the knowledge in the textbook to students. That is to say, the teacher's role has been changed in recent years. There has been a shift of emphasis from teaching instructional techniques to developing learning techniques. The teacher's role is no longer “standing on the stage”, but “guiding on one side”. The researchers on foreign language teaching are also paying more attention to role of the personality characteristics of the students in the English learning. One psychologist once said, the success of language learning depends not only on students’ skills, but also on their wills. “Skills” emphasize on the cognitive factors about whether students could learn, which are mainly related to the knowledge students learned and strategies and so on. While “wills” emphasize on the non-intellectual factors about whether students are willing to learn or stick to learn, which are mainly related to the motivation of students.
In the process of English learning, the emotional control of students has great influence on their learning. And the academic motivation is one of the main emotional factors as well as the most dynamic factor affecting their learning. Since 1930s, the psychological subject about motivation has aroused keen concerns, and there have been many different theories. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to the research on the academic motivation by researchers and teachers in China, and people also have begun to recognize its key status and role in the English learning of college students. However, currently, some college students still lack the motivation of learning English, such as no clear objective, no good study habit, lack of learning initiative and lack of confidence to overcome learning difficulties and so on. Besides, generally, in English teaching, it is a difficult task for college teachers to keep and stimulate their students’ learning motivation. Obviously, how to cultivate and inspire students’ motivation in learning English is the main question college teachers should explore. Thus, it’s necessary to make correlative researches on the strategies for stimulating college students’ motivation in English learning.

1.2 Purpose of the thesis
The stimulation of college students’ English learning motivation has far-reaching significance for improving their interest of English learning and acquiring excellent achievements in English learning. Although it closely relates to their interest, learning attitudes, learning strategies, academic performance, the learning environment in classroom and their self-control and so on, college teachers also play an important and irreplaceable role in English teaching for stimulating students’ motivation. As different attitudes and affective factors would produce different motivation, college teachers should be good at observing their students and adequately know the types of their students’ motivation so that they could adopt relevant stimulating strategies to help their students build up correct learning motivation and thus arouse the students’ interest in English learning.
In this dissertation, firstly, the writer analyzes the present situation of college students’ motivation in English learning; secondly, the writer analyzes the factors on influencing college students’ motivation in English learning; and finally, the writer puts forward some effective strategies for stimulating college students’ motivation in English learning based on different motivation theories. The aim of the thesis is to study the issue on how the college teachers stimulate the college students’ motivation in English learning with combination of various motivation theories in order to drive the college students to learn English initiatively and actively.

2. Literature Review
2.1 Definition of motivation
Motivation psychology, the most dynamic factor, has far-reaching influence for student’s learning. According to Gardner(1972)，motivation for language learning should include goal orientation, the combination of effort, desire to achieve the goal of learning the language and favorable attitudes toward learning the language. And he believed that the academic motivation is the internal power to impulse student’s learning. As one of non-intellectual factors, it indirectly promotes student’s learning. While Dörnyei and Otto(1998: 43-69) considered motivation as one of the functions of a person’s thought and defined it as “the dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritized, operationalized and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out”. In accordance with the correlation between motivation and successful second language learning(L2 learning), Dörnyei(1998: 203-229) also considered motivation as follow:
When trying to explain any success or failure in L2 learning, the term ‘motivation’ is often used by teachers and students alike. We take the view that L2 motivation is one of the most important factors that determine the rate and success of L2 attainment: it provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the L2 and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process.
In addition, lots of definitions of motivation have been put forward from different perspectives. For example, according to Jeremy Harmer(1991), motivation is defined as some kind of internal drive that could encourage learners to keep on pursuing a series of action. H. Douglas Brown(2001: 34) considered that “motivation is the extent to which you make choices about goals to pursue and the effort you will devote to that pursuit”. According to Atkinson(as cited in Arnold, 2000: 13), motivation is defined as “a cluster of factors that ‘energize’ the behavior and give it ‘direction’”. Richards(1992/2000: 298) regarded motivation as “the factors that determine a person’s desire to do something”. And Heckhausen(as cited in Dörnyei & Otto, 1998: 43-69) considered motivation as “a global concept for a variety of processes and effects whose common core is the realization that an organism selects a particular behavior because of expected consequences, and then implements it with some measure of energy, along a particular path”.
Thus, what exactly is motivation? According to correlative researches by contemporary motivation psychologists, motivation can be defined as the internal power to arouse and maintain the individual activities and thus reach a certain goal, is essentially regarded as one of the key determinants on a person’s thought and even his behavior by strongly motivating and giving him direction. In other words, motivation is the underlying cause to promote individual to engage in various activities, is the internal force to stimulate and guide the behaviors.
2.2 Types of motivation
The classical social psychology researcher on linguistic learning (Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1985) paid much attention to the learning “motivation” or “tropism”, which is the student’s characteristic. In their classical study on foreign language learning motivation, Gardner and Lambert(1959) classified the motivation into two types: instrumental motivation and integrative motivation. Instrumental motivation in Gardner and Lambert’s(1959, 1972) pioneering study is defined as the practical value and advantages of learning a new language. That is, the person with instrumental motivation has very limited interest in the people and the culture of the target language community, whose main purpose of learning language is to reach some practical goals such as attaining course credit, passing an exam, reading technical materials, furthering career, getting a higher salary, or getting a promotion in the future. While as the counterpart of the instrumental motivation, integrative motivation was defined by Gardner and Lambert(1959) as the willingness to be like valued members of the language community. That’s to say, integrative motivation was considered as a desire to learn the target-language on account of the learners’ real interest, or the attraction in the target-language culture, or the wish to integrate themselves within the culture of target-language group so as to communicate with the group and become a part of that society.
From the perspective of cognitive psychology which are centered on the reasons why people choose to act in certain ways, Deci and Ryan(1985) put forward another rather classical dimension which is in accordance with that of instrumental and integrative motivation, that is, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. According to Deci and Ryan(1985), extrinsic motivation is defined that language learning is the result influenced by external factors, and it is stimulated by some external temptations such as learning environment, teachers, parents, expected rewards, money, punishment avoidance, or reputation and so on. To reach a certain goal, the learners who are dominated by the external environment have to learn the foreign language. The language learning is just the means for satisfying the motivation, not for obtaining the language knowledge. That’s to say, as to the learners motivated by the extrinsic motivation, the language learning is not because of innate interest in it, but the desire to get external rewards. In contrast to extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is considered by Deci(1985) that the learners with the intrinsic motivation take part in the activities with innate interest for the pleasure and satisfaction. The language learning is just the goal the learners pursued. And the motivation for learning English stems from some internal factors such as interest, curiosity, the desire to learn, or achievements and so on. That’s to say, for the learners motivated by the intrinsic motivation, language learning is not because they can get some rewards, but because they need to do. It is caused by internal needs for some inner complementary rewards, such as sense of self-determination, sense of autonomy, sense of self-esteem and sense of fulfillment.
There is another classification on motivation by H. Douglas Brown. Brown(1994) divided the foreign language motivation into three types: global motivation, situational motivation and task motivation. And according to Brown, global motivation refers to the general attitude to the foreign language learning. It consists of a general orientation to the goal of learning a new language; Situational motivation refers to the motivation produced under the favorable learning conditions such as the character of the teachers, the teaching methods and the teaching materials and contents, and it varies according to the situation in which the learning takes place; Task motivation refers to the drive for performing particular learning tasks, that is, if the teacher designs appropriate tasks which will lead students to successful performances, the students will gradually develop a liking and an innate interest for second language learning.
Besides, in recent years, one of the most representative and influential researches on motivation in China is that of Wen Qiufang. Wen Qiufang(2001) explained motivation as the reason for studying English and the aim of learning English. In her opinion, the motivation of learning English should be divided into two types: surface motive and deep motive. People with surface motive tend to get a degree, a good job or a higher pay, while people with deep motive tend to study English for great interest and for extension of their knowledge.

2.3 Functions of motivation
Motivation is the underlying cause to promote individual to engage in various activities as well as the internal force to stimulate and guide the behaviors. Some researches indicate that there is a positive correlation between learning motivation and academic achievement(Ma Guanghui, 2005; Qin Xiaoqing, 2002; Wen Qiufang, 2001). Compared with the poor students, the gifted students usually have higher learning motivation and would make much more efforts and reach higher achievement. It’s obvious that motivation is an important and indispensable variable among the factors influencing college students’ academic achievement. That’s to say, motivation owns some functions such as regulation, stimulation, direction and maintenance which can affect college students’ academic achievement.
This first function is to regulate learning behavior of students. In general, the regulatory role the motivation played has also represented in three aspects: the student’s input level on learning activities, the student’s persistence in learning, and the student’s selection on learning tasks and activities. By regulating learning behaviors, motivation can influence the learning process and the quality of learning, and thus ultimately has an effect on the academic achievement. And the second function is to stimulate motivation. When the students generate exigent learning needs for some knowledge or skills, it will stimulate the internal driving force on learning, ar