A Study Of English Learning Motivation And Motivation-stimulating Strategies For Vocational College Students

Motivation-stimulating strategies in the study of second language motivations are still arelatively new field at present. Low English level and weak learning interest result invocational college students’ inadequate motivation in English learning. College EnglishCurriculum Requirements (2000) stipulates that vocational English teaching should follow thepracticality-focused and adequacy-oriented principles and should put equal emphasis on layinglinguistic foundation and cultivating language use ability. This requires vocational collegeEnglish teachers to fully stimulate students’ learning motivation, because without motivation,any learning will be impossible. Based on this, the author carries out a study of somevocational college students’ learning motivations and the relevant motivation-stimulatingstimulation strategies via theoretical discussion and empirical exploration.The present study aims to explore the status quo of the vocational college students’motivations to learn English. On this basis, the study puts forward some correspondingmotivation-stimulating strategies applicable to the vocational college English teaching andthen verifies the effects of the motivation-stimulating strategies proposed. The study attemptsto answer the following three research questions:1) the status quo of the vocational collegestudents’ learning motivations and motivational intensity before implementing themotivation-stimulating strategies;2) the motivation-stimulating strategies proposed to changethe dissatisfactory English learning motivations, if any, in terms of types and intensity; and3)whether the students’ learning motivations in terms of types and intensity will change afterimplementing the motivation-stimulating strategies.The present study can be divided into two phases. In Phase I, the author adopts aquestionnaire survey on107participants from two natural classes in a vocational collegelocated in Southwest China to examine their motivation types and motivational intensity inEnglish learning, thus acquiring the status quo of the vocational college students’ motivation.The survey questionnaire is derived from the Learning Motivation Types and Intensity Scaledeveloped by Gao Yihong (2002) with slight modifications and additions in line with theactual vocational college English teaching practice. After the descriptive statistical analysis of the motivation questionnaire data, the author comes to the conclusion that vocational collegestudents are primarily motivated by the extrinsic motivation to learn English with obviouslyinsufficient intrinsic motivation and motivational intensity.In Phase II of the present empirical study, the author implements motivation-stimulatingstrategy teaching on the same sample population for a whole fall semester, which aims to testthe effect of the implementation of the English learning motivation-stimulating strategiesproposed. Based on the survey results of the status quo of the vocational college students’motivation in English learning, the author designs a vocational college Englishmotivation-stimulating strategy, which includes learning goals and learning tasks, affectivefactors, learning situations and academic evaluation. Through empirical data processing andanalysis, the results suggest that the subjects after the implementation ofmotivation-stimulating strategies, the internal motivations and motivational intensity of thesubjects are significantly strengthened with external instrumental motivations weakening. Themotivation-stimulating strategy has achieved the expected effects.The present empirical study gives an exploration of the students’ learning motivationsand the teacher’s effective use of the motivation-stimulating strategies in the vocationalcollege English teaching context, and points out the directions the teachers should work on tosuccessfully stimulate vocational college students’ motivations to learn English and to improvevocational college English teaching effect in teaching practice. Finally the author brieflydiscusses the limitations of the present study and recommendations for the future research.