A Study On Students' Motivation In English Reading

As one of the most important and affective factors in English as Foreign Language (EFL) learning, motivation has great influence on both the learning process and result. Many language teachers have already acknowledged the importance of English learners'motivation. It has been one of the heated topics among the discussions of second language teachers and researchers. According to the motivation theories of Lambert and Gardner, motivation can enhance English learning. However, as English teachers, we often found that in the language-learning classroom, English teacher can easily find that quite a few students are demotivated. They are unwilling to get involved in classroom activities and various tasks. They seem to have lost interest and become more and more numbed or frustrated with their English learning. Consequently, they lose their confidence. Demotivation has detrimental impact on students'foreign language learning outcomes.In English reading teaching, the teachers are always challenged by some unmotivated or demotivated learners. The motivational problems prevent the language teaching and learning going successfully and effectively. However, the current researches on language learning motivation in China mainly focus on the importance of motivation, and nearly no studies concern the motivational factors, teacher's influence on learners'motivation and the motivational strategies in English reading teaching. Based on the analysis of motivation theories and its types, by introducing the definition of motivation, research situation about motivation in western countries and in our country, by analyzing the function of motivation in language learning, this paper is attempt to survey some strategies and methods about how to motivate and train learning motivation in English reading class, to investigate the reasons and influencing factors for students'demotivation and ways of promoting students'motivation, so that teachers can motivate learners'motivation and make it to be developed, and then learners'study efficiency in reading will be improved. In this thesis, a questionnaire survey was made by the writer with the aim of identifying the learners'motivation and motivational factors in teaching and learning English reading, especially the factors that related to teaching methods and the learning environment. In addition, students'problems in reading class are assessed by an interview.The data are analyzed by using the computer software SPSS 11.0. Correlational and factor analytic methods are also adopted in the paper. The results reveal that the reason of students'demotivation is various. Most students think reading is very important in learning a foreign language. It shows that most students put reading efficacy in a very important position in English learning. There are some significant differences between male students and female students. Female learners have strong motivation in intrinsic, extrinsic and importance of reading. But in reading efficacy, male learners are stronger than female learners. There are significant differences between grade one students and grade two students in foreign language learners'general motivation in reading. The intrinsic motivation of grade one students is little bit higher than students from grade two. Grade one students'extrinsic motivation is stronger than students from grade two. The result also indicates that students with higher score have strong motivation in learning English reading than students with lower score. So it is clear that the results of students'reading tests will be greatly influenced by their leaning motivation. Therefore teachers should pay attention to promoting students'motivation in their language teaching.Lastly, the author of the paper hopes that further more studies on the motivational factors and motivating strategies in teaching and learning reading in Chinese universities should be conducted in the future.