Promoting Learners' Motivation In The Classroom

For a long time, FLA (foreign language acquisition) has been treated as a phenomenon that has universal, structural properties, and the underlying assumption is that all the learners analyze input and store information about FL in much the same way. The second language research emphasizes an almost single-minded concern \vith searching for the optimal teaching method. Until recent years, researchers begin to notice that the second language learning is a multi-facet undertaking, involving and affected by a variety of factors and processes. Lots of research show that learners differ in a number of ways which affect FL acquisition, in particular their rate of development and their ultimate level of achievement. Analyzing what he calls 憀earner factors? Leon Jakobovits distinguishes four sets of factors, which account for the various degrees of success or failure of a foreign language learner: aptitude, intelligence, perseverance or motivation, and other factors. Based on the findings of American and Canadian psycholinguists and the results of other objective tests, he establishes percentage of these four categories and produces the t抩llowing table: Aptitude 33 Intelligence 20 Perseverance or motivation 33 Other factors 14 It is remarkable that the third category (perseverance or motivation) should come out with the same high percentage as aptitude (one-third of all the learner factors) and seem to be much more important than the intelligence factor. Research shows that motivation directly influences how often students use FL learning strategies; how much input they receive in the language being learned; how Abstract -59- well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests; how high their general proficiency level becomes; and how long they persevere and maintain FL skills after language study is over. Motivation is such a basic factor in language learning that I cannot see how any teacher could avoid being concerned with his students?motivation. In recent years lots of research have been done to investigate the nature and role of motivation in the FL learning process. But most of the researchers formulate their theory on the basis of surveys conducted primarily among English speaking Canadians learning French, the second official language of the country. This environment is an example of what can generally be termed as a second-language acquisition (SLA) context, where the target language is mastered either through direct exposure to it or through formal instruction accompanied by frequent interaction with target-language community in the host environment or multicultural setting. Then what is the situation when it conies to the Chinese English learners who obviously learn English as a foreign language in a Chinese context, where English is mastered neither through direct exposure to it nor through formal instruction accompanied by frequent interaction with English community? Though our teachers have noticed the importance of the learners?motivation to language learning, little research has been done on Chinese English learner. In 1988, Professors Wu Yi抋n and Liu Runqing carried out a project investigating the effect of factors affecting English Language learning. The results show that motivation is one of the six most important factors related to achievement. The pity is that they di...