Innovative Application Of ARCS Motivation Model To Students’ Spoken English Learning At Vocational School

With the increasing reform and opening-up, more and more walks of lifedemand vocational graduate students should have a certain level of Englishcompetence about their occupation. So it is very important for a vocationalgraduate student to learn English well in his occupation career development.However, vocational school students’ poor English oral communicative ability isthe real problem that every English teacher has to be faced with. To thevocational students, there exist many motivational problems in the process ofstudying spoken English，such as lack of interest, confidence, and learning goals.Motivation is one of the most important factors in the process of learning aforeign language. It has been improved in many theories that high correlationexists between English Learning Motivation and Academic Achievement. Thehigher motivation the learners get to, the greater achievement they will obtain.Therefore, it is very important to stimulate and maintain the students’ motivationin the process of teaching spoken English.Among many motivation theories,“ARCS Model of Motivation" arousesgreat attention, which is proposed by J. M. Keller, the professor of the Universityof Florida, USA. The model is composed of four aspects，namely Attention,Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction. Firstly, teachers try to stimulate students’attention, and try to establish a link between students’ need and the knowledge,then help students build up their confidence from the appropriate tasks. Finally,students obtain some satisfaction by finishing a series of tasks.Based on the investigation of112students from the11session accountingclasses, the writer analyzes the st’udents motivation of spoken English learning.Questionnaires, observation, and interviews are employed to obtain bothquantitative and qualitative data. Against the problems on students’ spokenEnglish learning, the writer applies Keller’s Motivational Design to theexperimental class teaching, which lasts four months. The results of study showthat not only the students’ motivation but also the students’ academicachievement in English spoken learning has been improved. Therefore, it is effective to apply ARCS Model of Motivation Design to English spoken teachingat Vocational School. In this way. We can stimulate the student’s learningmotivation and put the students’ autonomy learning to good use. Conclusively,ARCS Model of Motivational Design is feasible and effective in vocationalspoken English teaching.