A Case Study On The Effect Of A Junior High School English Teacher’s Support On Student Motivation

In the process of foreign language teaching, motivation is one of the most important factors in foreign language learning. Motivation is very dynamic which also plays an important role in students’foreign language learning. There are many empirical researches on student motivation at home and abroad, but the domestic researches mainly focus on the study of college student learning motivation, and rarely focused on junior middle school student learning motivation. English teachers’ support is closely related to students’ learning motivation. In order to understand the relationship between them, this paper adopts the Self-Determination-Theory as the theoretical framework to conduct this research.To start with, this paper reviews the existing literature of motivation theories in general including the definition and classification of motivation, the studies of Self-Determined Theories, the studies of the effect of teacher’s support on student motivation. Literature review provides a theoretical framework to explore the influence of teachers’support on students’motivation. By analyzing relevant motivation theories, this paper stresses the effect of English teacher’s support on student learning motivation in junior high school.This article will resolve the following questions:What are the characteristics of students’English learning motivation in junior high school? What is the relationship between English teachers’support and student learning motivation? Through analysis, in terms of the first question, it concluded as followed:students’identified motivation is the highest, followed by integrated motivation, introjected motivation and external motivation in junior high school; the motivation of females was significantly higher than that of males; the motivation of students from countryside is comparatively higher than students from city; the motivation of students in Grade 2 is higher than in Grade 1; the motivation of cadres is obviously higher than that of non-cadres. Junior high school students’ English learning motivation has a significant difference on gender, grade, cadre or not, from the countryside or from the city.In terms of the second question, it concluded as followed:English teachers’ autonomy support and competence support have positive effect on students’introjected motivation, identified motivation and integrated motivation, but it almost has no influence on external motivation; English teachers’relatedness support has positive effect on students’introjected motivation, identified motivation and integrated motivation, but it has negative influence on students’external motivation.