On Tibetan Middle School Students' Motivation In The Learning Of English

This thesis is an empirical study of English learning motivation among Tibetan middle school students. The aim of the study is to investigate Tibetan middle school students'motivation types and explore the interrelations among motivation types, motivational intensity and English achievement. The study also presents some implications for teaching and learning English in Tibetan areas.The data were collected from the questionnaires based on the related literature which are composed of three parts: personal information, Gao Yihong's motivation type scale adapted for Tibetan middle school students and motivational intensity scale. The participants were 242 TMS from Hezuo Tibetan middle school of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture who were asked to complete the questionnaires. Then all the data were subjected to statistical analysis with the system of Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS17.0), which includes:1)factor analysis which is aimed to classify types of TMS English learning motivation; 2)correlational analysis of motivational types and motivational intensity;3)correlational analysis of motivation types, motivational intensity and TMS'English achievement; 4)Independent samples test to identify if there are any significant differences between junior high and senior high, female and male Tibetan middle school students with regard to motivation types and motivational intensity.The present research has yielded the following findings:1)Tibetan middle school students present three types of motivation for their English learning: cultural, instrumental and situational, as well as eight sub-types of motivation (parents and teacher expectation and encouragement, intrinsic interest, social responsibility, learning situation motivation, learning anxiety, going abroad, individual development and attitude motivation).2) Six out of the eight researched motivation subtypes, except individual development motivation and learning situation motivation, correlate significantly with motivational intensity, while learning anxiety correlates negatively with motivation intensity. Motivational intensity is affected by gender. Female students'motivation intensity is significantly higher than that of male students'.3) The correlations between achievement and motivational intensity are unanimously higher than those between achievement and other motivation types. Therefore, learning efforts are a better predictor to achievement than motivation types. 4) Junior high and senior high bear some similarities in some of the motivational types, such as parents and teachers'expectation and encouragement, social responsibility, learning anxiety, going abroad and attitude motivation while they differ in some others, such as intrinsic interest, learning situation motivation and individual development. Female and male students'motivation differ in intrinsic interest, learning anxiety and learning situation motivation while bear similarities in other types.In the light of the study, the thesis provides some suggestions for initiating and maintaining Tibetan middle school students'English learning motivation, such as fostering learners'positive attitude toward English-speakers, maintaining TMS'interest in English learning, and having a better understanding of TMS'characteristics, etc. It is hoped that this study can contribute a lot to enhancing the teaching efficiency in Tibetan areas.