A Study On Motivation In Self-Regulated English Learning At Secondary Vocational School

The goal of current education tends more and more to improve one's ability and strengthen one's overall quality. It is impossible for one to adapt to this changing society with the knowledge acquired at school. The future society is a continual learning society that requires people to learn throughout one's life. Meanwhile, English has become the most popular foreign language in China. Thus, in today's educational situation, including English teaching, students' self-regulated learning ability must be cultivated at school. For students at Secondary Vocational School, they will meet more challenges if they can not keep on learning English after graduation. So, it is necessary for them to learn how to take responsibility for their own learning at school so as to develop the ability to continue learning after they complete their formal education.This study was based on Zimmerman's theory on self-regulated learning, examined the correlation between motivation and the other three components (strategy, volition, environment), the role that the motivational factors played and the characteristics that the motivational factors reflected on students in self-regulated English learning at Secondary Vocational School. The data was collected through survey questionnaire with 5-point Likert scale and computerized by SPSS. Correlational and descriptive statistics were used as the basis on which to produce the research questions.The results of the study indicate that motivation is strongly correlated with the other three components and plays a larger role in self-regulated English learning at Secondary Vocational School. Moreover, the results of the study show three pairs of contradiction of motivational factors reflected on students at Secondary Vocational School: (1) Students expect to learn English well but their poor foundation and lacking of confidence lead to their learning helplessness. (2) Students can fully realize the importance of English but they cannot put what they are learning in class into practice. (3) Students have little skills on English learning but they do not know how to seek help from the learning resources. These three pairs of contradiction of motivational factors are the salient characteristics of students at Secondary Vocational School.The study adopts qualitative and quantitative research to explore the motivation in self-regulated English learning at Secondary Vocational School. The research attemptsto find out more specific reasons causing these three pairs of contradiction and provides some recommendations according to students' characteristics and educational context with the aim of enhancing students' motivation for achieving their self-regulated English learning.At the same time, the paper presents two reasons for further exploration.