A Study On Motivating Students In English Teaching In Art Schools

Since 1970s, the interest in foreign language teaching research has turned from teachers' teaching to students' learning. Foreign language learning motivation research is just one of the important signs in this turn. Till now, many researchers has done a lot of research on foreign language learning motivation. Among them, Lamber and Gardner divided foreign language learning motivation into instrumental and integrative motivation. Another classification is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Also there is long-term motivation, short-term motivation, achievement motivation, resultative motivation and so on. These learning motivations have great impact on foreign language teaching and learning.Art schools are a kind of special vocational schools. Although they belong to vocational schools, they are different from the usual vocational schools. The students in art schools can enter into the Art Department in the universities in China after they take part in the entrance examination to the universities. Therefore, the students in art schools have to learn textbooks which are taught in middle schools. But at the same time, they have a great of difficulties in learning those textbooks because of their poor basis in English.The study is carried out on 108 students who are in an art school, based on their second-term final English examination achievements. They are divided into two groups, one is above the average score, the other is below. A small scale questionnaire was used to investigate students' English learning motivation in art schools. The study revealed that: 1) most of the art schoolstudents' English motivations need to be adjusted, 2) most of the art school students' English motivations are instrumental motivation or certificate motivation, 3) successful learners have intrinsic motivation, unsuccessful learners have extrinsic motivation, 4) art school students who have poor basic English knowledge have to learn senior middle schools' textbooks which are hard to the students, 5) students in art schools think highly of major classes, but lights of culture classes.Several education suggestions which are according to the reality of nowadays art schools and the result of the investigation are put forward based on the study: 1) Changing school's policies. 2) Reestablishing the learner's foreign language learning motivation. 3) Intrinsically motivating dynamics. 4) Using arousal. 5) Helping anxious students. 6) Setting and working toward goals. 7) Meeting needs. 8) Setting up beliefs. 9) Having students participate. 10) Assessment on study. 11) Encouraging students. 12) Helping students develop responsibility and independence.