The English Learning Motivation Research On The Students From Migrant Workers' Family

The recent study on English learning motivation began to pay attention to learners'personal factors, such as age, gender and different learning environments. This thesis makes a study on the English learning motivation of the students from migrant worker's family (student from rural area). The research subject is from a school for migrant workers'children and a public junior high school in Daxing district of Beijing. The first part of this study is to explore the need satisfaction situation. It is used to illustrate the present situation and features of English learning motivation. The second part is the discrepancy between students from rural area and city on English learning motivation type and intensity. Through the analysis on data, we observe the two independent variables, grades and family backgrounds, that influence on motivation types and motivational intensity.This study is based on Maslow's need theory and Gardner's classic motivation theory and its extended model. The social model is the perspective of the whole study. According to the result, this paper provides some suggestions on English instruction.Quantitative and qualitative researches are combined in this study. Quantitative research is carried out by two questionnaires and qualitative research focused on in-depth interview. The result show that students from migrant workers'family are essentially satisfied to their school's physical setting. The belonging needs are met in high degree. However, safety, esteem and self-actualization needs are relatively low. In the view above, the obstruction of motivation is from low degree satisfaction. In term of motivation types, students from migrant workers'family belong to external requirement type. The students from city mainly belong to personal development and learning situation type. From grade one to three, city student's intensity on motivation is higher than the student from rural area.The qualitative research is used to complement and verify the result of quantitative research. In-depth interview explores the deep reasons of the results. The qualitative research is divided into two parts, attitudes and perception to learning environment. The attitudes of students from rural area are separated into two extreme sides, which are corresponding to distribution of high level and low level. This situation is opposite to the students from city. Their motivational intensity concentrates on medium level. In the specialized school for migrant workers'children, the students have good relationship with their teachers and peers, while the unsecure feeling is mainly from the difficulties on learning English and teacher-centered classroom.