A Study Of English Learning Motivation Of Medical Students And Motivational Strategies

Since motivation is a key factor that affects second language learning and plays a very important role in students' English learning process, there should be some practical ways for teachers to promote their students' learning motivation. This paper is intended to first make a brief investigation into medical students' English learning motivation types and the teachers' roles in motivating English learners and then the author makes some practical suggestions to promote medical students' motivation.The most influential motivation pattern is proposed by Gardner and Lambert (1972) who distinguish motivation as two types: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. The former occurs when the learner wishes to identify with the culture of the second language group while the latter occurs when the learners' goals for learning the second language are functional. A lot of related researches on motivation were done in the following years by other linguists such as Brown (1981), Deci and Ryan (1985), and Dornyei (2001). Motivation studies have been carried out in China since 1980s. After performing a large amount of research on Chinese students' English learning motivation, Gao Yihong and her colleague found that there are seven factors related to English learning motivation: intrinsic interest, immediate achievement, learning situation, going abroad, social responsibility, individual development, and information medium. Many researchers also made corresponding researches on students' English learning motivation activating which is related to the Chinese specific situation. Meanwhile, teachers' behaviors such as personal characteristics, feedback, immediacy, teaching style have great influence on students' foreign language learning motivation. While the ultimate purpose for all these researches was to facilitate students' second language learning, how to stimulate motivation is a big concern.The paper uses a questionnaire to give a rather comprehensive reflection on the above points. The survey was administered to 179 learners of English in Fujian Medical University. The questionnaire consists of three parts. The first part involves the student's personal information. The second part entails 20 statements on English learning motivation and the teachers' role in stimulating students' English learning motivation. The third part involves two open-ended questions which intend to require the subjects to give a further supplement to the second part. After the data collection, results are analyzed by SPSS 11.5. The study has yielded the following findings:1) Descriptive statistic analysis of types of student learning motivation discovers that medical students present three types of motivation for their English learning: integrative, instrumental and self-improvement motivation. Most of the students learn English with self-improvement motivation. On the other hand, medical students' English learning motivations cannot be clearly divided into integrative motivation or instrumental motivation. To most students their English learning motivation is a mixture of integrative motivation with instrumental motivation.2) Correlational analysis of motivational types and achievement finds out that achievement has relationship with motivation.3) T-test identifies that there is not so big difference in the instrumental motivation of high-achievers and low-achievers while there is significant difference in the integrative motivation of high-achievers and low-achievers. Integrative motivation does prove to be more powerful predictors of achievement than instrumental motivation.4) Descriptive statistic analysis of teachers' roles in motivating English learners reveals that teachers' role exerts great impact on students' English learning.Based on the literature review and the findings of the study, some useful techniques and strategies to motivate students are discussed, including fostering students' integrative motivation, arousing students' instrumental motivation, stimulating students' self-improvement motivation, maintaining and protecting motivation, enhancing teachers' role in promoting motivation.