Motivational Orientation Patterns In Foreign Language Learning Context

It is universally acknowledged that motivation plays an important part in second/foreign language acquisition/learning. Motivation can be defined from three determining aspects of human behavior: the choice of a particular action, persistence with it, and effort expended on it That is, motivation is responsible for why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, and how hard they are going to pursue it. The choice aspect can also be considered the motivational orientation, which is the major concern of this thesis. Different learning contexts can be seen to have different orientations to learn SL or FL. In the case of foreign language learning context, it was found in this paper by the means of factor analysis that college students displayed such motivational orientations as follows: Adaptation and Self-Improvement, Appreciation, Interest and Challenge, Integrativeness, Follow-The-Trend and Diploma. It was also found that different language proficiency level groups showed different orientations. In the last chapter of this thesis, the author interpreted the results and offered possible explanations for the different orientations among different proficiency level groups. Some suggestions on how to utilize these findings to facilitate English teaching and learning in classroom setting were also provided in this chapter.