A Study Of English Majors' English Learning Motivation In Vocational Colleges

Foreign language learning motivation is one of the most important non-intellectual factors that influence students' performance in language learning. The effect of English learning is largely affected by both intrinsic and extrinsic drive. Intrinsic drive includes social motivation; certificate motivation; instrumental motivation and achievement motivation, while extrinsic drive includes interest motivation and integrative motivation.Firstly, the thesis introduces the background information about vocational college students' English learning motivation and analyses the domestic and foreign studies on motivation research and the relationship between motivation and study behavior and its effect. Then adopting both qualitative and quantitative research approach, it conducts a survey on 34 vocational college English majors in Shanghai Business School and collects data through questionnaires, and students' scores in CET-4 of June, 2008. The data collected are processed by computer for further analysis. Furthermore, 10 successful learners and 10 unsuccessful learners are selected according to the scores and interviewed afterwards to investigate the relationship between vocational college English majors' learning motivation and family background. Meanwhile, other non-intellectual factors are taken into consideration as well. The result shows that both these groups are highly driven by extrinsic motivations; however, successful learners hold more interest motivation. It is also clear that there are differences in self-efficacy and attribution between two different groups. Moreover, students usually hold stronger study motivations when family monthly income ranges from 3000 to 4000 and when parents have got high school or college diplomas. Finally, according to the result of the thesis, some suggestions of teaching English have been made for improving students' language learning motivation in vocational colleges.