A Study On Students’ English Learning Motivation And The Countermeasures In Vocational School

With the rapid development of the Chinese Education System, more and more particular attention has been paid to the development of vocational education. As we all know, Secondary Vocational Education has played an important role in the whole Chinese education system, for it aims to cultivate billions of talents who are equipped with high quality. Nowadays, since English has been spoken widely in the world, it also takes over a significant role in secondary vocational schools.This thesis has attempted to probe into the English learning motivation and the strategies in vocational schools. As we all know, learning motivation is one of the most active factors in language learning and it is the pre-condition of students’ learning activities. It is commonly viewed as an inner drive that moves students to particular action in their learning activities. As a result, finding ways to arouse and cultivate students’ English learning motivation is of great significance.Two questions have been studied in this thesis in the combination of different perspectives of learning motivation theories, such as the perspective of behaviorism and cognition. The two questions are as follows:1) What is the current situation of students’English learning motivation in vocational school?2) Will students’English learning motivation be changed by applying new teaching strategies?The thesis first gives a brief introduction to the definition and classification of learning motivation. Then it analyzes the related studies of English learning motivation abroad and at home.After that, the thesis analyses the theories from the two perspectives(behaviorism and cognition). On the bases of reinforcement theory, attribution theory, needs theory and achievement motivation theory, a one-year empirical research in Xiushui Vocational School was conducted. The subjects involved in the experiment are85senior one students from two parallel classes:one is the Experimental Class and the other is the Control Class. New teaching strategies are used in the Experimental Class while conventional teaching methods are used in the Control Class. The research instruments are as follows:one questionnaire and seven questions for the researcher to have interviews with the students in the Experimental class. There are34questions in the questionnaire, and these questions are chosen from the following five parts:interest of study, purposes of study, valence, self-efficiency and attribution. A pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire before and after the experiment are conducted both in the Experimental Class and the Control Class, and interviews are added only in the experimental class after the experiment. After all the data are collected, they were processed by SPSS13.0. During the experiment, new teaching strategies are adopted in the Experimental Class while traditional teaching methods are used in the control class. The results indicate that the level of English learning motivation in the experimental class has been improved a lot, which means that the new strategies have had good effects on the changes of students’ English learning motivation.In conclusion, this thesis presents an empirical research on the study of students’ English learning motivation and the countermeasures. The results display that there are totally different effects as to the application of new teaching strategies or traditional teaching methods. New teaching strategies have good effects on improving students’ English learning motivation.