A Study On Learning Motivation And Learning Strategies Of Laotian Students In The Primary Stage

Over the years, the community of scholars in China has carried on immenseamounts of researches on learning motivations and strategies in English learning.However, as far as the informed researches are concerned, the researches on learningmotivation and strategies of Chinese Teaching as a Second Language are not toomuch, especially lacking of empirical researches, most of them being at thedescriptive level, seldom exploring the relations of learning motivation and learningstrategies of the two, being with a single method. The subjects are usually for Europeand the United States, Japan and South Korea students’ second languageacquisition.The research data from Lao students is rare, the conclusion being notcomprehensive and concrete.Based on Dornyei (1990,1990,1994,2005) learning motivation theory, on54Laos college students from Xishuangbanna Vocational College and Yunnan NormalUniversity as samples, and on the method of quantitative research, this paperinvestigates relationship of the Laos foreign students’ Chinese language learningmotivation with Chinese level.Through SPSS’ descriptive statistical analysis, we findthat the highest score of three types of attitudes and motivation, in turn, is thelanguage level, learning situation level, learners level. According to O ’Malley&Chamot (1990) Language Learning Strategy theory and Oxford (1990)’s LanguageLearning Strategy Scale (the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning), the paperexamines the Laos foreign students’"Cognitive Strategies","Metacognitive Strategy","Emotional Strategy" and "Communication Strategy". We find the score of using thestrategy from high to low for Lao students to Learning Chinese is CommunicationStrategy, Metacognitive Strategy, Cognitive Strategy and Communication Strategy.The investigation shows that Lao students have some understanding to Chineselanguage learning motivation and learning strategy, and also might choose suitablemotivation and strategy, but unfortunately, their Chinese level doesn’t have positivecorrelation with three language learning motivation and four language learningstrategies. Such research result is not ideal and the evaluation of students may not be accurate, possibly because most Laos subjects are on the primary stage of Chineselearning, because sample is not big enough to reach a not rough aim and becauseChinese scores are based on self-reported rather than a real written proficiency test.Finally, we find Lao students’ Chinese learning motivation has a significant positivecorrelation with four Chinese language learning strategies.The paper is divided into six parts. Part one is the introduction. Part two is theliterature review. Part three is the theoretical framework. Part four describes thedesign of study, methods and data collection process. Part five analyzes the collecteddata, summarizes the results of this study, pedagogical implications. Part six showsthe research result, proposes that the limitations of this study and provides thesuggestions for Chinese teching.