Research On Motivation Of Students In English Learning In Vocational And Technical Colleges

Motivation is regarded by many researchers and practitioners as one of the most important factors of success in learning a foreign language. It determines the extent of the effort to learn a new language and personal involvement in learning a foreign language. The students who have no or low motivation are not sufficiently involved in foreign language learning and therefore are unable to develop their potential foreign language learning skills.Till now, many researchers have done a lot of researches on foreign language learning motivation. Lamber and Gardner are the most famous ones. Although recently lots of domestic attention has been paid to the study of learning motivation, most of the studies focus on the students in general, such as primary school students, middle school students, and ordinary university students, with little attention to the students in vocational and technical colleges. It is reported that the State Council requires all the local governments to develop and support all kinds of vocational and technical educations that are useful to the society. The number of the vocational and technical colleges will increase year by year. Then we can see as a part of higher education, vocational and technical education is playing a more and more important role. It trains qualified personnel for our country as other high schools do. It is important to pay more attention to learners'effective factors in English language teaching and learning nowadays. So it is of both theoretical importance and practical significance for the researchers and English teachers to improve the motivation and activeness of the students in English learning.The present research makes an investigation of English learning motivation of 210 non-English majors ranging from "Architecture", "Computer Information" and "Japanese" in Qingdao Qiushi Vocational and Technical College with the methods of questionnaires, semi-open interviews and class observations, so as to obtain the true picture of these students'English learning motivation. Through the investigation, it is found that:1) Quite a lot of students are not confident in English learning.2) A majority of students lack interest in English Study.3) In the learning process, the students'motivation is variable.4) Lots of students'motivation is low and instrumental or extrinsic.5) Many of the students attribute their failure in English learning to the English teachers.6) They think what they learn in English classes have little relationship with the reality and the teaching material is too difficult for them to learn.7) When they are faced with difficulties, they hardly have any strategies to deal with them.Finally, the thesis gives the following strategies and suggestions on how to raise the motivation of the students in English learning in vocational and technical colleges:1) Strengthen the students'confidence.2) Arouse and keep students'interest.3) Choose the suitable and interesting teaching materials.4) Help teachers to change their teaching behavior.5) Help students to set achievable goals.6) Make the students grasp effective learning strategies.It is hoped that the research can improve the foreign language teaching in vocational and technical colleges and the motivation and activeness of students for the purpose of further developing their English learning skills and English proficiency.