A Study Of College Students' Classroom Motivational Ailments In College English Teaching

Motivation has been called the"neglected heart"of language teaching. Tapping into motivation is crucial for language teachers because we know that motivation is one of the key factors driving language learning success (D?rnyei, 2001; Ellis, 1994). There is considerable interest today in the notion of motivation to learn a second or foreign language. Since the 1990s, research in the area of motivation has undergone a kind of'renaissance'(Gardner and Tremblay, 1994a). Since many researchers acknowledge that motivation can be one of the key predictors of success in second/foreign language learning, a large quantity of research has been carried out in order to investigate what constitutes motivation and how it functions. This thesis is based on the previous study of motivation, centering on college English teaching practice and targeting at the factors which have negative effects on students'motivation in the teaching process.Andrew Finch (2002) used"learning physician"to refer to teacher's function in teaching and learning. Borrowing his words and trying to be more detailed, we see the teacher as the motivation physician whose patients are the students with motivational ailments. The term students with"motivational ailments"refers to lowly-motivated students or students with motivational problems. By using this, we mean teachers act as a motivational physician, whose job is to diagnose students'motivational ailments and prescribe a course of action.This thesis is about students'motivational ailments in the college English teaching. It is trying to find out the symptoms of students'motivational ailments, how they behave compared with motivated students, which factors have typical negative effects on students'motivational ailments and what the motivation physician can prescribe in order to enhance students'motivation. It is carried out among 66 non-English major students in Jinan Vocational College. A questionnaire based on Gardner (1985) and Li Yanhui (2004)'s MA thesis was constructed to examine students'motivation intensity and relationship with the major classroom factors. An interview was later conducted to further explore which factors have negative effects on students'motivation and how students with motivational ailments behave. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient and the Independent-samples t-test were employed to analyze the data by using SPSS 11.5. The results of the study show that the factor of teacher and classroom climate are significantly correlated with students'motivation. However, inconsistent with the previous findings, the factors of teaching method and the teaching material have no obvious correlation with students'motivation. It also indicates that the teacher really plays a very important role in motivating students. What the teacher does in class influence students'motivation directly or indirectly. Teacher's misbehaviors of teacher immediacy have direct negative effects on students'motivation. However, as the motivation physicians, most of the teachers do not realize their responsibility on students'motivational ailments. Furthermore, students with motivational ailments are easier to be influenced by the teacher and the classroom climate.The findings shed some lights on the teaching practice. One thing to emerge meaningfully from this study is the importance of reflective teaching. Teachers are not only to teach, but also to think and solve problems in teaching. Additionally, we should pay more attention to misbehaviors of teacher immediacy as well as to create a positive classroom climate. The underlying issues related to motivation are complex, but it is clear that every person's motivation to learn is flexible rather than fixed. As teachers, we can directly influence our students'motivation about learning English, becoming more motivating teachers and bring"the heart of language teaching"into our classrooms.