The-Research-into-High-School-Students’-Motivation--for-Learning-English-高中生英语学习动机的调查研.doc

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

Abstract i
摘要 ii
1. Introduction 1
2. Theoretical Background 2
2.1 Definition of Motivation 2
2.2 Classification of Motivation 3
2.2.1 Integrative Motivation and Instrumental Motivation 3
2.2.2 Internal Motivation and External Motivation 3
2.3 Gardner's and Dornyei's Motivation Theory 5
2.3.1 Gardner's Social-educational Model 6
2.3.2 Dornyei's Three- level Categorization 6
3. The Survey 7
3.1 Subjects 7
3.2 Instruments 7
3.2.1 Interview 7
3.2.2 Questionnaire 7
3.3 Survey Questions 8
4. Results and Discussion 8
4.1 The Main Trend in all Students’ English Learning Motivation 9
4.2 The Differences of Motivation among Top, Middle and Bottom Students 10
4.2.1 The Analysis of the Differences 11
4.2.2 The Strategies of Stimulating Students’ English Learning Motivation 12
4.3 The Differences of Motivation between Girl and Boy students 14
4.3.1 The Analysis of the Differences 14
4.3.2 The Advice on Gender of the Students’ English Learning Motivation 15
5. Suggestions 16
5.1 Suggestions for Students 16
5.2 Suggestions for Teachers 17
6. Conclusion 19
Acknowledgements 21
Bibliography 22
Appendix 24

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

ii

1. Introduction

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.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 Definition of Motivation
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.
2.2 Classification of Motivation
Lots of researchers and scholars have divided motivation into several types from different angles.
2.2.1 Integrative Motivation and Instrumental Motivation
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.
2.2.2 Internal Motivation and External Motivation
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.
2.2.2.1 Subtypes of Internal Motivation
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).
2.2.2.2 Subtypes of External Motivation
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.
2.3 Gardner's and Dornyei's Motivation Theory
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.
2.3.1 Gardner's Social-educational Model
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 se