A Study On The Correlation Between Motivation And Learner Autonomy Of English Majors

There have been heated discussions over motivation and learner autonomy (hereby LA) in the field of second language teaching and learning. While many scholars carry out studies that focus on the conceptualization of motivation or learner autonomy, others are interested in investigating the relationship between the two terms. However, no agreement has reached. In this regard, scholars in recent years begin to study the correlation between the two. And also there are studies on the relationship between the two, most of which focus on non-English undergraduates. That is to say, there are not enough studies done on correlation between English majors (hereby EMs) motivation and learner autonomy.The present study is carried out to investigate the correlation between EMs’motivation and learner autonomy focusing on the following research questions:1. What are the characteristics of motivation among EMs?2. What are the characteristics of learner autonomy among EMs?3. What are the overall patterns of such correlation?Altogether113EMs from Central South University and Hunan Normal University were asked to complete two questionnaires in December,2011, with one of them on the types of motivation and the other on learner autonomy. Questionnaires investigation and interviews were both conducted to fulfill quantitative and qualitative analysis. Based on the findings worked out by using Statistical Program for Social Sciences17.0(SPSS17.0), the study comes up with the conclusions as follow:1. The two most common types of motivation for EMs are intrinsic motivation and learning situation, followed by individual development and going abroad. Immediate achievement is ranked as the fifth common one, and social responsibility and information medium are the least common types of motivation for EMs.2. EMs’autonomy in monitoring and evaluating their own learning of English is high, but EMs do relatively poor in autonomously getting to know teachers’teaching purposes and requirements, setting learning goals and learning plans for themselves.3. Motivation correlates learner autonomy significantly and the level of such correlation are rather high.4. Among the seven types of motivation, intrinsic motivation correlates with LA at the highest level followed by information medium, which correlate with LA at a high level. The correlations between social responsibility and LA, learning situation and LA, and individual development and LA are at a moderate level. There is low correlation between immediate achievement and LA, and between going abroad and LA.Based on the above findings, the author puts forward some suggestions for teaching. Firstly, it is important for teachers to strengthen EMs’intrinsic motivation in learning. Secondly, teachers should have attached more importance to a supportive learning environment in order to promote EMs’LA because there is a significant correlation between learning situation and LA. Finally, more opportunities should be given to EMs by which we can stimulate students’information medium motivation in order to promote their learner autonomy.