English Learning Motivation And Achievement: A Correlational Case Study

Motivation is one of the most important factors that affect L2 learning.No one can achieve any long-term learning goals without learning motivation.For this reason,it is always a research focus of high importance and a lot of researches have been done on motivation.As early as in 1950s,Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert started motivation research.Their research mainly focused on two types of motivation for leaming a second or foreign language:the integrative motivation and the instrumental motivation.Another dimension of motivation is that of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.Deci and Ryan's (1985) self-determination theory just focused on them that were thought to lie on a continuum of increasing self-determination.Bailey(1986) thought that L2 learning motivation could be divided into four types:intrinsic integrative motivation(M1), extrinsic integrative motivation(M2),intrinsic instrumental motivation(M3) and extrinsic instrumental motivation(M4).Based on previous studies,this thesis directed attention to the four types of English leaming motivation of English majors in a Chinese college and examined the relationships between the four types of motivation and English learning achievement.The study was carried out among 154 first-year English major students from the Foreign Language School of Yangtze Normal University.An English learning motivation questionnaire was constructed based on Gardner(1985) to examine students' responses to 32 items related to the four types of motivation.And an English proficiency test was employed to measure the subjects' language proficiency.The data collected from the questionnaire and English proficiency test were processed with SPSS 13.0.Pearson correlations were conducted to determine the relationships between language learning motivation and language proficiency.And a mathematic equation was employed to test the significance of the difference between two correlation coefficients.The results of the study showed that the four types of motivation had no significant correlation with the students' language proficiency,which was inconsistent with previous findings.However,the students held stronger instrumental reasons towards English learning.M3 was significantly correlated with students' writing skill and M4 was significantly correlated with students' listening,reading and writing skills.The correlation of M4 and reading was significantly stronger than the correlation of M3 and reading;the correlation of M4 and writing was significantly stronger than the correlation of M2 and writing.The results of this study suggest that many English major students are mainly instrumentally motivated to learn English,and more emphasis should be given to developing students' intrinsic and cultural motivation.More importantly,what English teachers need to do is to try to guide the students to develop an intrinsic interest toward English learning on the basis of their existing instrumental reasons.