A Study Of The Relationship Between Students’ Motivational Self System And Their English Achievements In A Ghinese Higher Vocarional College

With the development of the second language acquisition research, the focus of second/foreign language instruction have been shifted from teaching to learning, and researchers began to concentrate on the nature of the second language acquisition and its relevant causes. Since motivation is one of the key factors influencing the success or failure of the second/foreign language learning, it has become the important topic in second language acquisition research.English learning has been one of the important aspects in modern vocational education. In China, higher vocational education has developed rapidly in recent years. The demand of economy, society and vocational technology requires the vocational graduates to be equipped with high capacity to master English, to center on the core competencies to fit the market needs, to read the foreign technological documents data skillfully, to learn the world’s advanced knowledge and technology in their own domain and to receive their the original training abroad, etc. What’s more, vocational education enrolls students with diverse backgrounds, different ages, and a broad range of educational goals. Therefore, it is vital to do more research on higher vocational college students’English learning motivation.On the basis of the previous research results and Dornyei’s recent motivational theory, this empirical study aims to survey the relationship between students’motivational self system and their English achievements in a higher vocational college. Taking205non-English freshmen in a higher vocational college as the participants, this study is to investigate and explore the following three research questions:1) What is the general situation of students’English motivational self system in Chinese vocational colleges?2) Are there any differences in their idealse/fand ought-to se/fbetween the students of literal arts and science?3) What is the relationship between the students’motivational self system and their English achievements?The present study is mainly quantitative in nature, and complemented by qualitative data. Of the quantitative data, the questionnaire developed by Dornyei who proposed the L2 motivational self system theory was used to measure205participants who attended the Practical English Test College in June,2011and collect the test achievements of PRETCO in September,2011.All the quantitative data were put and analyzed with SPSS17.0. Descriptive statistics, independent-samples T test, Pearson correlation analysis and multi-regression analysis were applied to answer the three research questions. And the contents of the interview serve as the supplement for the quantitative research.The major findings are made as the following:1) L2motivational self system exists throughout all the students in Chinese higher vocational college and impacts on their state of language learning. Among the three subscales in L2MSS, ideal self influenced strongly; FL learning experience took the second place and ought-to self ranked the third.2) The ideal self of the students in liberal arts are stronger than that of the students in science, but their ought-to selves have no notable difference.3) The students’ideal self and FL learning experience have the positive correlation with their English achievements. The stronger ideal self of the students in higher vocational college and the more positive FL learning experience has, the higher their English achievements are, and vice versa. But ought-to self has little correction with English achievements of the students in the higher vocational college. Meanwhile, the present study discussed the results and gave the implications for English teaching in higher vocational college.