Investigation And Research On The Relationship Between English Learning Motivation And Family Background For Secondary Vocational Students

Motivation has been acknowledged as an important factor influencing students' success or failure in learning a language, it provides the primary impetus to initiate learning a second language and later the driving force to undergo the long and often tedious learning process. Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are appropriate curricula and good teaching enough to ensure student achievement". The study of motivation is crucial for a teacher, without a knowledge of the ways and means of encouraging students' learning, knowing about their `appetites' in the widest sense of the word, being sensitive to their interests, the teacher's task would be impossible".Family's background means that one person owns what kind of social capital, culture capital, economic power and political situation. They play an important role in one's life. Stern (1983: 385) argues that "the motivation of learners initiates and maintains the learning process, or leads to the avoidance or rejection of learning; it involves the stated reasons and perceived goals as well as the subconscious drives and needs that prompt and sustain the learning effort or lead to its inhibition or rejection."But most of students in vocational schools are from middle school .They are short of learning ability. They always show their little interest in learning, Especially in English. The clearly character is that their backgrounds are very poor. Their parents had no good education and custom. I teach in No.2 Secondary Technical School, which is a typical secondary vocational school, and was set up in this school in 1979. I made an experimental research on 200 students in 4 classes of different majors in this school. According to the survey and interview, I found an important relation between learning motivation and background. There are lots of influencing factors for learning English, including background. Excellent background will promote English learning motivation, in the contrary it will limit student's enthusiasm and block their development.The thesis consists of four parts. In the first part, I brought up the study, study background and study significance. In the second part, I expounded the definition, characteristics, structure and principles of background and motivation. In the third part, I designed the survey and interview structure. In the forth part, I made an experimental study and analysis.By the analysis of the experimental data and questionnaire data, I verified conclusion that Background effect English learning motivation for vocational students in some way. Meanwhile I found school teaching should make up for family'education to accelerate students.