A Study On English Learning Motivation Among Chinese Non-English Major Graduate Students

As an important component of affective variables, motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second language or foreign language learning. Research into L2 motivation can help L2 teachers have a better understanding of the psychological process, social influential factors and individual differences in L2 learning, and thus explore some effective L2 motivation promotion strategies.Recently, many Chinese scholars have attached more and more importance to motivation study in LEFL. Most of the foreign language learning motivation studies have taken undergraduates as their subjects and few focus on Chinese Non-English Major graduates'foreign language learning motivation. During the recent decade, the number of graduates has been increased greatly and the graduate education is also quite diversified in forms. Consequently, it is impossible for us to treat undergraduates and graduates as the same learner group.On the basis of a wide-ranging review of related literature, the author presented a comprehensive framework to study the English learning motivation of Chinese Non-English major graduates. This framework is based upon Dornyei's three level motivational factor framework with some modification. The essence of some other motivational theories has been incorporated into the present framework.The present study aims to do an all-round study on the English learning motivation of Chinese non-English major graduates. Research questions are proposed on language level, learner level and learning situation level respectively. The subjects were 300 Chinese non-English Major graduates chosen randomly from five universities. According to the data analysis, the following results were obtained: (1)'Integrative motivation'and'instrumental motivation'both play important roles in affecting Chinese non-English major graduates'language proficiency, among which the role of'integrative motivation'is more powerful. (2) All the learner level motivational factors have direct effect on the English learning motivational behavior of Non-English major graduates except'valence'and'language anxiety'; among these learner level motivational factors,'self-efficacy'has the greatest effect on the English learning motivational behavior. (3) All the teacher-specific motivational components have direct effect on the English learning motivational behavior of Chinese non-English major graduates, among which'affliative motive'has the greatest effect on the English learning motivational behavior; among the course-specific motivational components,'interest in the course'has the greatest effect on the English learning motivational behavior.These study results have some implications for English teaching of Non-English major graduate students. Based on these results, specific motivation promoting strategies are proposed from teachers'perspective.