Chapter One Introduction
1.1Purpose of the study
As an English teacher, the author often meets some students who have lost theirinterests in learning English or lack learning motivation. Other colleagues also facethe same problems. There is an old saying, that is, interest is the best teacher. Themore interest the students show in learning, the more active they become and thebetter result they acquire. If teachers can arouse students’ interest in English learning,it will be easier for teachers to help students form a good habit of English learningactively. Therefore, the author aims to arouse the students’ interest in English learningand to motivate the students’ English learning. Having stepped into the 21century,China is in great need of talents who have the ability of using English as their secondlanguage to communicate in different ways in different fields with the internationalworld, because English is considered with no doubt as the most significant andpervasive language all over the world. Therefore, the educational demand foreducating and training such talents is raised and the quality is badly required. It isreported that the people in dire need are the ones who are good at English, especiallythose who are experts at foreign languages as well as their professions.Motivation is considered as one of the most powerful factors in the field of SecondLanguage Acquisition (SLA).The author thinks teachers should help students arouse,maintain and consolidate their motivation in English learning. It is recognized thatmotivation is to motivate, regulate, facilitate and hinder the language learning directlyis one of the reasons why the author has chosen “motivation” as the focus of thethesis.Motivation is of great significance in promoting the direct and internal force oflearning. Students’ learning behaviors dominated by motivation indicate whether theywant to learn, what to learn and how many efforts they want to exert. And no matterwhat kind of motivation students have, the students with strong motivation do betterthan those without motivation. (Harmer, 2000: 8)
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1.2Significance of the study
With the global socio-economic development, the world has become a smallvillage with more frequent personnel exchanges among people from differentcountries. In such a background, the ability to use English has become one of the mostimportant abilities of the contemporary college students, so English learning becomesan important and a main part of college education.A persistent problem faced by many English teachers is the attempt to sustainstudents’ interest in continuing to learn English though the examinations are over andstudents have passed PRETCO Level A or Level B. As the author of this paper haswritten before, the failure of the students in our college is that the students are lack ofmotivation in English learning. Motivation is what moves from boredom to interest. Itis something like the engine and the steering. Moreover, people have increasinglyrecognized that learners have become the most important factor affecting foreignlanguage learning among those such as teachers, learners, learning environment andso on. Therefore, the focus of the foreign language learning study has graduallytransferred from teachers’ teaching to students’ learning in the past few decades.During the factors of affecting learners’ language learning such as motivation,personality, learning ability and learning methods, motivation is regarded as one ofthe key factors that draw the attention of educators at home and from abroad.Besides, learning motivation, as a non-intellectual factor, is unstable compare
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Chapter two Literature Review
2.1 The definition of motivation
It has been a long time since the beginning of the research on L2 acquisition andmotivation has always been regarded as one of the key factors in L2 learning. Manystudies have found that motivation is strongly related to achievement. Differentscholars have different views to the definition of it. Dornyei and Otto (1998:65)define motivation as “the dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person thaninitiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive andmotor process whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritized and(successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out”.Williams & Burden define motivation from the constructivist perspective.“Motivation may be construed as a state a cognitive and emotional arousal, whichleads to a conscious decision to act. And which gives rise to a period of sustainedintellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain a previously set goal (or goals).(Williams & Burden 1997:120)According to Keller (1983:389), motivation refers to “the choices people make asto what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid, and the degree of effort theywill exert in that respect.”Ellis (1994:715) defines motivation as “effort which learners put into learning asecond language as a result of their need or desire to learn it”.Wen Qiufang believes that the English-learning motivation can be understood tobe the reason and purpose of learning English (1996:174). He Zhaoxiong and MeiDeming define motivation as “the learner’s overall goal or orientation” (1999:280).
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2.2 The classification of motivation
In the early time, Gardner and Lambert (1972) thought motivation should bepided into two types: integrative and instrumental. The former refers to a desire tolearn the language in order to relate to and even become part of the target languageculture and the latter has to do with practical reasons for language learning, such asgetting a better job and financial rewards. One type of motivation is not necessarilymore effective than the other. It is clear that the two kinds of motivation do notexclude each other. A mixture of integrative and instrumental motivations motivateslots of the second language (L2) learners.Research on motivation is often regarded as a key factor in L2 learning. Gardner’sSocio-educational Model is the most influential theory of motivation for L2acquisition. It distinguishes between an integrative orientation and instrumentalorientation to L2 learning. Motivation has been identified with regard to the goal oflearning a second language (Crookes and Schmidt 1991). Gardner points out that theintegrative﹠instrumental distinction reflects a continuum rather than alternatives.Learners with integrative motivation are more active in class and less likely to dropout, while learners with an instrumental reason for learning an L2 can be successful.
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Chapter Three Methodology ........9
3.1 Objectives....9
3.2 Participants.......9
3.3 Instruments.......9
Chapter Four Data analysis and discussion.......11
4.1 Personal information of the participants.... 11
4.2 Data analysis of the questionnaires for the survey........11
4.3 Motivational differences between students from different majors......17
4.4 Data analysis of the interview......19
Chapter five Conclusion .......22
5.1 Conclusion.......22
5.2 Implications.....22
5.3 Limitations .....23
5.4 Suggestions......23
Chapter Four Data analysis and discussion
4.1 Personal information of the participants
The personal background information can partly indicate the students’ presentEnglish learning situation and provide some references for teachers to teach studentsin an appropriate way.According to the statistical results on Table 1, there are 235 participants (43 boysand 192 girls), among whom there are 119 clinical medicine students, 68nursing-majoring students and 48 pharmacy-majoring students. 88.1% of the studentscome from the rural areas and only 11.9% of the students come from cities and towns.The findings at Qujing Medical College have proved that all the students havestudied English for 6 years, which is long enough for them to learn to takeresponsibilities for their own English learning. Most of the students come from therural area in which the English teaching level and teaching hardware facilities arerelatively poor and their scores of College Entrance Examination are low. Therefore,the students’ English foundations are poor.
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Conclusion
It is the first step to investigate learners’ English learning motivation during theprocess of learners' learning and the final purpose is to improve learners' L2 learning.Arousing learners' motivation has become an important part in the process of foreignlanguage teaching with the shift from the teachers’ teaching to the learners’ learning.In order to find the appropriate methods to stimulate the students’ English learningmotivation and learn English well, it is necessary to understand three-year-programmedical college students’ learning motivation. This research at Qujing MedicalCollege reveals the following findings:
(1) Extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation are the main motivation typeswhich are found in three-year-program medical college students. There is nosignificant difference related to motivation types. However, the intrinsic motivationof students’ English learning is much higher than their extrinsic motivation in the firstsemester. After one-semester English learning, the students’ extrinsic motivation hasincreased while their intrinsic motivation has decreased.
(2) There is no significant difference in English motivations among clinicalmedicine students, nursing-majoring students and pharmacy-majoring students.
(3) Male students are less interested in English learning than the female students.There is no significant difference between male and female students.
(4)The students from the rural area are more interested in English learning andhave a stronger motivation in English learning than the students from the urban area.The students from the rural area are eager to change their identities through learningwell.
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Reference (omitted)