A Comparative Study On Students' Motivation For College English Learning In Chinese And Japanese University

In foreign language learning and teaching, learner's motivation is a focus and discussed by many researchers and teachers from various perspectives。College students' English learning motivation is one of those many research subjects drawing much attention from Chinese language scholars. As a hot issue of the Chinese society, bilingual education is attracting more and more people's attention. Many researchers (Gao, 2003; Shi, 2000) have proved that a very important motivation type for Chinese college students' English learning is "certificate motivation", of which CET certificate is the most dominant one. Certificate is an important index of extrinsic motivation.Based on Deci and Ryan's (1985) intrinsic/extrinsic motivation dichotomy, this thesis adopts quantitative approach to study the relation between CET reform and the two motivation types. This study is undertaken for the following purposes: firstly, to identify students' English learning motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic, and then study the correlation between students' motivation type and their English proficiency; finally, to provide some useful suggestions on how to enhance students' English learning motivation.Data collected suggest: many English learning motivation of university students in China is extrinsic, and finding a good job and getting CET certificate are the most conspicuous ones. The correlation between intrinsic motivation and English language proficiency is higher than that between extrinsic motivation and language proficiency. However, the top-ranking motivation overall was 'out of admiration for fluent Japanese speakers of English', underlining students' positive attitudes to English. The next four top-ranking motivations concern English as an international language, for widening horizons and enjoying foreign cultures - for Japanese students, English is the doorway to the world, rather than the language of any particular countries. It is shown that extrinsic motivation ranks highest, followed by integrative, instrumental and intrinsic motivation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the present policies and situations of college English learning in Chinese and Japanese universities. Chapter Two surveys the theoretical literature on motivation in second language learning. Chapter Three illustrates the instrument and subjects of the study. Chapter Four, the most important chapter, presents and analyses the findings of the two questionnaires by comparison. Chapter Five, the final chapter, provides some suggestion on how to initiate, maintain and reinforce students' motivation for Learning English.