Teacher Demotivating Factors For College English Learners In China

Following Dornyei's (2001a) definition of demotivation, this relatively new area in motivation research has gained increasing attention and investigation. Demotivation can negatively influence learners'attitudes and behaviors, degrade learners'motivation, and result in long-term and widespread negative learning outcomes. Previous studies have identified some common demotivating factors:the teacher, inadequate school facilities, negative attitudes towards the L2, course books, and so on. Among these factors, the teacher was the most frequently reported and controversial one. Hence, a mixed methods research, with an experimental design, was designed to investigate possible teacher demotivating factors for college English learners in China.297 students and 15 teachers from Southwest University, Chongqing, participated in this study.135 students took an open-ended questionnaire-based survey and 15 teachers took a close-ended one, which helped to find out what teacher factors considered less detrimental by teachers were actually felt to be most detrimental by students.Other 162 learners from 3 classes were employed in the experiment to see whether those teacher factors identified in the previously mentioned surveys had negative effects upon the subjects'change in English learning motivation and English proficiency.69 of the students were valid subjects forming 2 experimental groups and 1 control group. An English Learning Motivation (ELM) questionnaire-based pre-survey and an ELM post-survey, and a pre-test and a post-test were used to collect data of the subjects'English learning motivation and of their proficiency respectively.Through qualitative and quantitative analyses, the results demonstrated that among 21 identified teacher demotivating factors, the following were most detrimental ones perceived by the students:1) the mono-method teaching; 2) the teacher's poor management of the class; 3) the teacher's over-emphasis of autonomous learning; 4) the teacher's lack of enthusiasm; 5) the teacher's neglect of poor English students; and 6) the teacher's special and focal caring for excellent students. The 6 factors accounted for 51.92% of the students'demotivating feelings. Nevertheless, Factors 2 and 6 were perceived by teachers as having little detriment. In view of the differences between the teachers and the students, the present study was intended to see whether these teacher demotivating factors affected learners'English learning motivation and English proficiency.Consequently, Factors 2 and 6 were selected for manipulation in the teaching experiment. The results verified that the two factors were detrimental to both learners' English learning motivation and their English proficiency. Furthermore, it was proved that the teacher's poor management of the class was more demotivating than the teacher's special and focal caring for excellent students, for many Chinese college English learners. These results may help teachers realize the significance of avoiding demotivating factors in teaching English to Chinese college students, and try to prevent or minimize demotivation.