A Study Of Effect Of Science Students' Language Learning Motivations On Their Learning Strategies

Since the early 1970 s, the focus of foreign language teaching and research has shifted from "how to teach" to "how to learn", and language learning strategy has received more attention. Language learning strategy is affected by many factors, such as cognitive style, personality, motivation, etc. which are internal factors. Many domestic and foreign researchers spend a lot of time studying language learning motivation and learning strategy from different angles. Although there are some studies on the relationship between language learning motivation and language learning strategy, researches on the effect of science students' language learning motivations on their learning strategies are relatively limited.On the basis of previous researches, the author of this research adopts a questionnaire survey which is a method of quantitative research to find out the situation of science students' learning motivation and the situation of their learning strategy use. This study aims to answer the following three questions:1. What is the general situation of science students' language learning motivation?2. What are the language learning strategies most commonly used by science students?3. What effect do science students' language learning motivations have on their use of learning strategies?107 freshmen and 85 sophomores as subjects participated in this investigation. They come from four different majors of four different colleges of Chengdu University of Technology. The author of this reseach uses two questionnaires: Questionnaire One(Language Learning Motivation Questionnaire) is designed to investigate the general situation of science students' learning motivation; Questionnaire Two(Language Learning Strategy Questionnaire) mainly tests the situation of science students' learning strategy use.Through data analysis, findings of this study are as follows: as for language learning motivation, the results of this study show that individual development motivation is the strongest motivation held by science students, followed by achievement motivation, immediate achievement motivation, information media motivation, learning situation motivation, intrinsic interest motivation and going abroad motivation. Generally, freshmen's individual development motivation, information media motivation and achievement motivation are stronger than sophomores'. As for science students' language learning strategy, the most commonly used strategy is compensation strategy and the following are metacognitive strategy, cognitive strategy, memory strategy, affective strategy and social strategy. Generally, freshmen tend to use memory strategy and metacognitive strategy more frequently than sophomores while sophomores tend to use social strategy more frequently than freshmen.The results of this study show that science students' language learning motivations have much effect on their use of language learning strategies. Intrinsic interest motivation has the most influential effect on the students' use of memory strategy, cognitive strategy, metacognitive strategy, affective strategy and social strategy. Science students holding intrinsic interest motivation tend to use metacognitive strategy and cognitive strategy. The research results also show: immediate achievement motivation may hinder science students' use of memory strategy, cognitive strategy and metacognitive strategy; learning situation motivation has little influence on students' use of compensation strategy, metacognitive strategy and social strategy; science students who hold going abroad motivation tend to use metacognitive strategy and social strategy. Science students holding individual development motivation and information media motivation prefer to use metacognitive strategy; science students holding achievement motivation tend to use metacognitive strategy and compensation strategy.