English Learning Motivation And Meta-cognitive Strategy Use Of Senior Vocational School Students

With the continuously rapid development in general linguistics, psycho-linguistics and cognitive psychology, researchers transfer the study focus from "how to teach" to "how to learn", change the study subjects from "teachers and educators" to "learners", and initiate the study on learner differences. Although among SLA studies, learner differences or individual factors have been greatly concerned, few focus on interrelations among these factors and most subjects concerned are average university students only. By focusing on Senior Vocational School students, the current study is supposed to explore their motivation for English learning and English learning strategy use, with particular reference to meta-cognitive strategy use, and further probe into the relationship between learning motivation and meta-cognitive strategies.Within the framework of cognitive linguistics, the current study is carried out among Chengdu Huaxia Senior Vocational School students, with three questionnaires involved: the first is Learning Motivation Questionnaire, which is self-invented on the contributions on motivation home and abroad to ensure to be more Chinese-student-oriented; the second is Questionnaire of Language Learning Strategies, which is Oxford's SILL in general, expect some supplements and deletions, and the last is Questionnaire of Meta-cognitive strategies. After all valid data being put into computer, SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is applied in data analyses; and Pearson Coefficient is adopted to analyze the correlation between learning motivation and meta-cognitive strategy use.Equal attention is paid to Senior Vocational School students, who have been neglected for long. What's more, instead of focus studying one or two specific individual factors respectively, the current study explores the interrelationship among various individual differences with some major findings: in English learning, Senior Vocational School students are, in general, weakly motivated and they are proved to be seriously lack of intrinsic interest with English learning; their motivation orientation is one-track, and English learning for them is only to pass tests or examinations, to gain scholarship or to get graduated. Simultaneously, students' learning strategy use is proved to fall into the poor level: being greatly devoid of meta-cognitive strategies, they seldom devote themselves in English study willingly or arrange their time efficiently. Compared with cognitive strategies and social strategies, they more rely on compensation strategies and affective strategies. As for the correlation between learning motivation and meta-cognitive strategies, the two are proved to positively correlate with each other, suggesting that the greater the motivation intensity is, the higher level of meta-cognitive strategy use will be expected; motivation orientations of Immediate Achievement, Individual Development, Intrinsic Interest and Learning Situation are proved to significantly correlated with meta-cognitive strategy use; and motivation orientations of Information Medium, Going Abroad and Social Responsibility, although positively correlated with meta-cognitive strategy use, no significant correlation is found here.Despite the improvements and complements needed, the current study surely provides some empirical evidence for the future studies on learning motivation and learning strategies, enlightens and inspires teachers and educators of Senior Vocational Schools.