A Study On The Correlations Between Higher Vocational College Students’ English Learning Motivation, Learning Strategies And PRETCO Achievements

In recent years, the research on the relationship between English learning motivation, learning strategies and learning achievements has gained more interest from both scholars in SLA and teachers in higher institutions. Learning motivation has been regarded as one of the most important variables that affect students’ foreign language achievements, and learning strategies are the methods and steps that learners adopted to improve learning efficiency. The subjects of previous research on the relationship between English learning motivation, learning strategies and learning achievements are mainly students in primary and middle schools and higher institutions. There are little research on students in higher vocational colleges. With the popularization of higher education in China, the population of students in higher vocational colleges has taken up more than half of the whole population of college students. At the same time, it is a prominent problem that overall entrance level of students in higher vocational colleges is comparatively low as compared to university students. As thus, it is necessary to do more research on English learning of students in higher vocational colleges. Higher vocational education is different from higher academic education in that the former is aimed to educate applied and technical talents. Besides related professional knowledge and skills, the ability in practical application of English is also emphasized. In order to improve the quality of English teaching and students’ abilities in practical application of English in higher vocational colleges, the Ministry of Education has launched the Practical English Test for Colleges (PRETCO)-Level A twice a year since 1998. The purpose of the test is to assess examinees’ language knowledge, skills and their abilities to use English to deal with businesses and intercultural communications. PRETCO scores have been used to measure students’ English achievements in higher vocational colleges. So this article attempts to explore the correlations between higher vocational college students’ English learning motivation, learning strategies and PRETCO achievements.Through questionnaire survey,296 freshmen from different non-English majors in Jingzhou Vocational College of Technology were investigated in the study on their English learning motivation and learning strategies. These students were enrolled in the college and began to take college English course since September,2014. Their current status of English learning and the correlations between their English learning motivation, learning strategies and PRETCO achievements are analyzed in this survey. The research questionnaire includes two parts:students’ personal information, questionnaires on English learning motivation and learning strategies. First of all, the related theories of English learning motivation and learning strategies are introduced. Secondly, based on the investigation, the following problems are analyzed:(1) The current status of students’ English learning motivation and learning strategies in higher vocational colleges. (2) The correlations between higher vocational college students’ English learning motivation, learning strategies and PRETCO achievements. (3) These students are divided into two groups:high-achieving students and low-achieving students according to their PRETCO scores. Then the differences of these two groups in English learning motivation and learning strategies are analyzed. According to the results of the survey, SPSS20.0 (Statistical Package for Social Science) is used to analyze the relevant data, and the following are the findings:(1) Students in higher vocational colleges hold relatively strong integrative motivation and instrumental motivation; they frequently adopt compensation strategies and affective strategies; their least frequently used strategies are meta-cognitive strategies and social strategies. (2) High-achieving students are highly motivated by integrative and internal factors, and they use strategies more frequently, especially memory strategies compared to low-achieving students. (3) There are positively significant correlations between students’ integrative motivation, internal motivation and PRETCO achievements. However, there are no significant correlation between instrumental motivation, external motivation, achievement motivation and PRETCO achievements. As for learning strategies, there are positively significant correlations between students’ memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies and PRETCO achievements.This paper consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the research background, significance and purpose of this article. The second chapter reviews the previous research on learning motivation and learning strategies. The third chapter is about the research methods, including the subject, research instruments, data collection and data processing. The fourth chapter is the discussion of the study results. The fifth chapter summarizes the research results, discusses corresponding pedagogical implications, points out the limitations of this study, and proposes future research that can be carried out.