Foreign Language Learners' Learning Motivation And Learning Strategy

In recent years,the study on foreign language learning motivation and foreign language learning strategies which is considered as the most two important factors which influence foreign language learning has attracted more and more attention from researchers at home and abroad.A lot of research indicates that learning motivation and learning strategy play an active role in second language learning.According to Gardner's social educational model,motivation is a kind of internal drive for students to achieve the goals of learning.At the same time,the development of learning strategy has also attracted more and more attention,since 1970s,in the field of language teaching,researchers have shifted their attention from "how to teach "to "how to learn",they have focused on how these factors influenced the choice of learning strategy,including learning style,motivation,age,and personality.Based on the Garnder's motivation theory and Oxford's learning strategy theory,the researcher utilized the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis designs to conduct the study and bring out the best of each approach.The thesis is to investigate the motivation types and learning strategies adopted by 260 second year students,both science and arts,introverted and extroverted,in Heilongjiang University.Through the questionnaires and interviews,and after data analysis by SPSS software,here come the following findings:1) All the subjects in thesis hold stronger instrumental motivation,integrative motivation and resultive motivation.2) Compared with science students,arts students hold a higher integrative motivation.3) Extroverted students hold stronger integrative motivation and intrinsic motivation than introverted students,4) For learning strategy,all the subjects apply almost all learning strategies frequently,while meta-cognitive strategy is rarely used by subjects.5) For compensation strategy,arts students use more frequently than science students.6) Introverted students are inclined to use meta-cognitive strategy than extroverted students.All the above findings are very helpful for language learning and teaching,and also bring some pedagogical implications.From the study,we can find teachers should get to know and get closer to student's inner world,what motivations they hold and how they use learning strategies.If teachers get a better understanding of their students,it will greatly motivate student's interest in learning,and encourage them to use learning strategy frequently.