An Investigation Into The Motivation And Strategies Of Thai Students Learning Chinese In China

Learning motivation (LM) and learning strategies (LS) are two important factors that affect second language learning, and it also have important impacts on Thai students when they study Chinese.With the deepending of China and Thailand exchange, more and more Thai students coming to China to study Chinese, it is necessary and important to study their LM and LS of Chinese learning, especially the trend and relationship of both factors between the different Chinese levels of Thai students, so as to improve the teaching method and enhance Chinese acquisition.By investigating the Thai Chinese learners in Southwest University, who are studying in primary, intermediate, and advanced levels respectively, the study shows that learners’LM, including Instrumental, Integrative, Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Resultative Motivation, and LS, including Cognitive, Meta-cognitive, Affective and Social Strategy, differ with the learner Chinese level. The relationship between motivaton and strategies all chang among different levels.The results show that, instrumental motivation is the strongest of all Thai students’learning motivation, which have most important impact on strategies; affective and social strategies are used most frequently, when Thai students learning Chinese; and cognitive strategy have most important impact on motivation.