A Preliminary Research On Strategies Activating Senior High Students' English-Learning Motivations

With the college entrance examination system changing in Jiangsu Province, the percentage of English scores in college entrance examination (CEE) is lowered, while the content of high school English curriculum has not been decreased but increased. To cope with this problem this paper has made a preliminary research on how to strengthen and enhance good students' motivation to learn and stimulate poor students. It is the author's wish that this study will work out more effective approaches and strategies to motivate high school students to learn English.To carry out the research a survey is made to investigate the factors affecting high school students' English learning motivation. Based on the findings proposals are made on how to develop students' motivation to learn and stimulate their English learning.The paper consists of six parts: the introduction, the conclusion and the other 4 main sections. It starts with an introduction about the study background and significance. As we know the new curriculum advocates "learner-focus learning". It calls attention to students' learning motivation. However, cases are often found where some students have been in lack of motivations, or are losing their interest in English learning, which, consequently , affect the learning effect. Therefore, a preliminary research is made on the strategies applied to activate students English learning motivations. In part one analysis and reflections are made on the current high school English teaching situation in Jiangsu province. How to meet the national, regional and local English curriculum requirements facing the decreasing percentage of English scores in CEE is a big challenge for teachers in Jiangsu. Teachers of English or language educators are working hard on effective classroom teaching approaches and strategies to arouse or stimulate students' interest in English learning or activate their English learning motivations. In the second part a literature review on related theories and a brief description of the current situation of English learning motivations are given. In part three strategies and principles of motivation to stimulate students to learn English and classroom teaching strategies used in practice are discussed. An experiment on motivation strategies is conducted. The experiment includes a pre-experiment investigation on students' English learning motivations, the strategies applied in practical teaching and experimental research and the after-experiment data analysis. Conclusion comes in the final. There limits and expectation are presented for future improvement.