Autonomous Learning: A Study Of The Characteristics Of The English Non-Majors' Regulations Of Motivations

Autonomous learning has, over the last three decades, become a fairly popular topic in language learning and teaching in China with the realizing of life-long learning and learning autonomously. However, due to the influence from various factors, it is not an easy or direct process to enhance college students' abilities to learn autonomously, especially to put the awareness of learner autonomy into practice. Learners' autonomous learning is affected by complicated factors, motivation being one of the most influential variables. There have been considerable researches and investigations on motivation in second language learning, however, motivation is not static but dynamically evolving and changing, little is known about whether and how foreign language learners regulate their motivation confronting different learning situations, to say nothing of the role of motivational regulation in foreign language learning. On the basis of this, an investigation is carried out in order to examine autonomous learning among college EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students, with a focus on the motivational regulation strategies the students use to regulate their motivation and the impact of motivational regulation on their learning process and achievements.To investigate college EFL learners' motivational regulation, this thesis aims to explore the following four aspects: (1) The current situation of learners' autonomy and motivation in their own EFL learning; (2) The types of strategies college students use to regulate their motivation in English learning; (3) The overall patterns in using these strategies; and (4) The relationship between motivational regulation strategies, motivational factors, and the language achievements.After a brief introduction to the background, the significance and the layout of the thesis, this thesis reviews the theories and studies on autonomous learning, motivation and motivational regulation, pointing out the importance of motivational regulation for FL learning and the necessity of examining motivational regulation in FL learning. What follows are the research design, the results and discussion. The research is mainly conducted through a four-part questionnaire to examine college EFL learners' motivational regulation. The participants were 346 sophomores and junior students studying at Xi'an University of Finance and Economics. The results indicated:(1) College EFL learners have already realized the importance of learning autonomy and are already practicing autonomous learning and they are utilizing a variety of strategies to regulate their language learning motivations so that they keep sustained strong zeal to master the language skills.(2) The most frequently used motivating strategies are interest enhancement, performance self-talk, mastery self-talk, self-reward, negative-based incentive, task value enhancement, volitional control, and self-efficacy enhancement. And they are used with medium to high frequency, but there are significant differences in the frequency of which they were used. The study also indicates that these differences are somewhat affected by the motivational factors.(3) Most of the motivational regulation strategies were significantly and positively related to English achievements, and these strategies can be considered as predictors of varying degrees of their language achievements.Although there are limitations to the study, the findings of the present study have important implications. Motivational regulation has been recognized as "an intriguing new area within motivational psychology, exploring ways by which we can endow learners with appropriate knowledge and skills to motivate themselves." (D(o|¨)rnyei, 2001b: 52). From this aspect, this study introduces motivational regulation into SLA (second language acquisition) and sheds some light on the understanding of the individual differences in EFL teaching and learning. The findings also suggest that EFL teachers should not only try to motivate students but also help students self-regulate their motivation or overcome motivational difficulties to promote their language learning.