Learning Motivation And Learning Achievement Of Vocational College Students

Motivation has been considered to be one of the main factors in determining learning outcomes in foreign language teaching. Many researchers in psychology and education such as Maslow and Gardner have taken different approaches in motivation research and have proposed many different theories on motivation. Motivation is considered the main cause and strength of the people's activity. Motivation in the foreign language learning is that the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language.The author finds in her teaching practice that quite a few students do not have a high motivation in English learning. So some researches have been done to understand the students' motivation guided by motivational theories. The study focuses on motivation orientations, attributions of causes of success and failure, and a comparison between boy and girl students in factors that influence their English learning motivation.One hundred and one subjects randomly selected from two classes in Nantong Institute of Technician have taken part in this investigation. The study adopts questionnaire as its instrument. The questionnaire aims to explore the reasons for students' English learning, factors influencing their learning motivation, and attributing factors of success and failure. The investigation indicates that most students, especially the girls have instrumental motivation; more girls are interested in English; some students attribute there failure to uncontrollable factors such as learning environment or to the lack of language learning ability; traditional teaching method decreases students' motivation.Based on the findings, the author has done some research from motivational strategy perspective and teaching perspective to find out appropriate ways which fit the existing teaching conditions. To motivate the students, some approaches have been carried out in the classes , such as creating basic motivational conditions; promoting learner autonomy through increasing students involvement; increasing student interest and the effect of teaching by integrating traditional teaching method with communicative approaches.The interviews at the end of the first semester of the academic year 2006-2007 indicate that the guidance of motivational theories and improvement in teaching approaches which the author adopts in her teaching practice are of great value in helping to motivate students.