An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Autonomy-oriented Instruction On The Development Of Senior High-school Students’ Motivation In English Learning

Self-determination theory (SDT) claims that satisfying the learners’ three basic psychological needs, i.e. autonomy. competence and relatedness. leads to the development of their intrinsic motivation. This study focuses on the impact of learner autonomy on the development of the learners’ motivation. Many scholars have argued that learner autonomy is indicative of identified regulation and intrinsic motivation, and that raising the students’autonomy is likely to foster their learning motivation. Previous studies on the relationship between learner autonomy and learning motivation have revealed that learner autonomy is positively correlated with learning motivation. But so far, few empirical researches have been done on how to promote senior high-school students’motivation in English learning by enhancing learner autonomy.The purpose of the current study is to explore whether senior high-school students can be helped by learner autonomy-oriented instruction to develop their motivation in learning English. This instruction mode is designed by incorporating various relevant theories and concepts, including self-determination theory, the concept of self-regulation, the expectancy-value theory and the attribution theory.This study was conducted in the No.1Senior High School of Rongxian County, Sichuan Province. The participants in this study include80students of two groups (i.e. the Experiment Group and the Control Group) from two classes in Grade Three. The particularities of the students in this kind of school, such as poor educational background, lower economic status, narrower outlook of the world, motivate the author to make such an attempt in designing this learner autonomy-oriented instruction mode to promote their motivation. Due to their generally unsuccessful learning experience and fairly low learning motivation, these students are expected to be adaptive to this instruction mode, which is deemed to guide them to experience the learning process and begin to enjoy English learning.The findings of this study are general positive, which prove the effectiveness of this instruction mode in promoting the students’motivation and autonomy. This study has not only added to the knowledge concerning the relationship between learner autonomy and learning motivation, but also provided an effective approach to develop the English learning motivation of students with unsuccessful learning experience and low motivation.