A Study Of Demotivating Factors In Students’ English Learning

In L2 learning process, there are so many variables maybe have influence on learners’ learning achievements, such as, learning style, learning strategy,motivation and so on. Among all these variables, motivation is one of the main determinants to influence learners’ achievements with no doubt, so it definitely costs scholars a lot of energy to study it. But it is not complete to just study the positive aspect of motivation instead of the negative aspect of motivation, which is called demotivation. The study of demotivation in L2 learning starts in early 1990’s in European countries. And the study in China starts in 2010, since then it has been noticed gradually. It should be noticed that the subjects of these researches mostly are college students, high school students, especially junior high students are seldom chosen as the research subjects.This research is both quantitative and qualitative to investigate three research questions:(1) What are the demotivating factors affecting students learning English in junior high school?(2) How do these demotivating factors rank in affecting students learning English in junior high school?(3) Is there any difference on the demotivating factors of the students from different genders?There are 400 students chosen as the subjects from the 11 th junior high school in Tongliao city to fill in the questionnaires. After analyzing the data by SPSS 17.0, seven dominant demotivating factors affecting junior highschool students’ English learning are gotten, which are teacher’s personality,students’ attitudes to English learning, teacher’s teaching competence, current situation of English course, students’ confidence, family condition, and learning environment. As for the ranking of the dominant demotivating factors, teacher’s personality is the NO.1 demotivating factor, followed by learning environment, students’ confidence, current situation of English course, students’ attitudes to English learning, teacher’s teaching competence,and family condition. It also indicates that male and female students has obvious differences on demotivating factors, male students are easier to be affected by students’ attitudes to English learning and students’ confidence than female students. In addition, the interview of students and teachers can help readers understand the research clearly and correctly. Based on the findings of questionnaire and interview, some pedagogical suggestions are given to the teachers from both teacher’s aspects and student’s aspects to relieve students’ demotivation.