Motivation And "Dumb English

College students of non-English major in China mainland have made a great progress in linguistic knowledge of the English language in the past two decades, which mainly owes to the continuous improvement of the college English teaching. However, "Dumb English" is still quite common. Most of the students' oral English proficiency is so unsatisfactory that they cannot make simple daily conversations on familiar topics. The reasons for this are diverse and complicated. Consequently, this thesis explores some Chinese college students'1 oral English learning based on Gardner's Socio-Educational Model in SLA (Second Language Acquisition) from the perspective of motivation. Motivation of language learning consists of orientation, the desire to learn the language, attitudes toward language learning situation and effort expended achieving such goals. Motivation is divided into two basic types: integrative and instrumental. It is assumed in this thesis that instrumental orientation plays a far more important role in college students' oral English learning than integrative orientation does; the less time students spend on oral English learning, the poorer oral English competence they demonstrate; among the various attitudes towards oral English learning situations, national unified examination on foreign language learning dominates all others(teachers' pronunciation, personality and comprehensible input, teaching materials, extra-curricular activities, etc). A 28-question questionnaire concerning motivation of oral English learning was conducted to 161 students who learn College English. Interviews were carried out to a small group of 22 students. The data collected were processed by SPSS 10.0 version. The result of the study indicates that the above assumptions are tenable. The study also shows that the national unified examination, to a great degree, influences students' oral English learning 'motivational intensity' (effort). In addition, students have been aware of the importance of pronunciation and teaching methods to oral English learning.The purpose of this study is to find out how and to what degree motivation variables affect students' oral English learning. For this reason, building up positive motivation to eliminate 'Dumb English' should be an urgent and important thing to do.My paper is organized as follows: Chapter 1 states the background of the study, including-current status of students' oral English, the relationship between motivation and oral English learning in China's setting and theoretical background of the study. Gardner's early socio-educational model and the revised one are stated in detail. Chapter 2 puts forward three study hypotheses based on Gardner's motivation elements. Field research shows that the three hypothesesare tenable. Chapter 3 describes the quantitative research of the influence of motivation elements on students' oral English learning. Then data analysis and discussion follow to support the hypotheses. Chapter 4 makes a response to the three hypotheses and describes suggestions tearing off the label of 'Dumb English'. Concluding remarks include the limitation of this study and tentative plan to improve it.