A Study On English Learning Motivation Of Private College’s Students

A lot of studies and researches indicate that language learning motivation is the key anddecisive factor among various factors affecting second language acquisition. A large number ofresearches concerning second language acquisition have been conducted abroad and in China.Gardner’s theory of language learning motivation is the most influential one. Most of theresearches in China follow the model of Gardner. Empirical researches have been carried outamong college non-English majors from some most advanced colleges and universities in China.Few researchers are concerned with vocational and technical education which came into being inearly1980s, especially private higher education which was restored in1990s. This study isplanned to conduct a questionnaire to investigate private college students’ motivational types andcompare private college students’ motivation with public college students’ motivation. It isaimed to better understand private college students’ motivational type of language learning andaccordingly put forward its enlightenment for English teachers. Because of private collegestudents’ specialty, it is especially important to learn about language learning motivation ofprivate college students in order to take corresponding strategies to inspire students’ languagelearning interest and thus improve their performance.Based on the literature review, a questionnaire was conducted according to ‘MotivationalQuestionnaire’ designed by Gao Yihong (2003). According to Gao, language learning motivationis classified into three types: instrumental motivation, cultural motivation and situationalmotivation. Gao Yihong (2003) introduced an exploratory classification of seven motivationalfactors which affect college students’ language learning. The factors are classified into internalinterest, achievement, learning situation, going abroad, social responsibility, personaldevelopment and information media. The questionnaire is composed of two parts: individualpersonal information and motivation types. Part one is designed to elicit personal data from theparticipants. It consists of some items such as gender, family background, college types andliving place before entering college.30items are included in part two to get the subjects’motivational types. The questionnaire uses five-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree”(1) to“strongly agree”(5).128college students from Shandong Yingcai College and72students fromJinan University were asked to complete the questionnaire, and all of them took part in the CET Band4in June,2012. SPSS was employed to analyze the statistics obtained. Descriptive analysisis used to discover the differences. Besides, T-test is used to analyze the motivational differencesbetween urban and rural students, between high-achievers and low-achievers, between privatecollege students and public college students, between male students and female students. Finally,correlation analysis was implored to analyze the relationship between motivation andperformance.The results showed that private college students are not deprived of any types ofmotivation, though they failed the National Matriculation Test and have no choice but to studyin private colleges. Concerning the three motivations, most participants in private collegestudents had strong instrumental motivation. Most are lacking of intrinsic interest. Privatecollege students are more likely to be influenced by the learning surroundings, such as theteachers, the classmates, the teaching materials and the teaching methods applied. Moreover,what private college students care more about is to pass various examinations, to get certificatesand to find a good job upon graduation. No matter whether the learners are from private collegesor public colleges, the more interested they are in English, English culture and literature, thebetter their performance will be.The factors affecting learning motivation are also investigated in the research. The resultsindicate that although intrinsic interest plays a crucial role in language learning, external factorscannot be ignored because human beings are social animals. The factors are culture-related(history and culture, economic situation, foreign language situation and family situation), privatecollege students’ specialty, school-related factor, classmate-related factor and teacher-relatedfactor. Among these factors, parental and teachers’ encouragement is also vital to students’success of language learning. Finally some suggestions are provided for enhancing privatecollege students’ learning motivation. Private English teachers are encouraged to take effectivemeasures, such as making classes interesting by using different media, establishing a favorablelearning environment and creating various extracurricular activities to increase students’learning motivation.