A Study On Undergraduate Pilots' English Learning Motivation

China boosts a larger number of English learners represented by college students with diverse English performance.Motivation is one of the major factors influencing a learner's second language learning.Stronger motivation contributes to better second language performance.Therefore,motivation becomes a significant issue discussed in second language acquisition.Overseas and domestic scholars have conducted enormous theoretical and empirical researches on second language learning motivation of different groups including college and high school students,laying a foundation for further researches.An increasing number of students contribute themselves to China' s aeronautics career with the proposal and development of China Aircraft Plan,generating a large number of flying technique learners(called undergraduate pilots in this paper).When they apply for the flight major,requirements for their English performance are not high.However,English is closely related to their career development for strict requirements are made for pilots' English performance.They want to improve their English,but lack corresponding understanding of their own English learning conditions,feeling loss in English learning.This research,taking randomly selected 240 undergraduate pilots as the research subjects,investigates undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation through questionnaire and interview.The original questionnaire is designed combining the one adopted by Gao,Y.H.(2003)and pre-tesing results.It is sent out in a small scale and tested to delete invalid question items,generating the final questionnaire.SPSS 20.0 is used to conduct the component analysis,independent t-test,and correlation analysis of collected questionnaires,and an interview is conducted based on the analysis results,to figure out undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation types,differences in English learning motivation between two training models,and correlation between undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation and their English performance.Based on data analysis,results obtained are as follows.Firstly,undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation is divided into intrinsic interest motivation,grade motivation,personal development motivation,social responsibility motivation,information media motivation,and learning situation motivation.Secondly,the independent t-test finds no dramatic differences in the English learning motivation of undergraduate pilots of two training models.In general,undergraduate pilots of two training models present a similar trend in motivation intensity.Finally,the correlation analysis finds six motivation types are positively correlated with the English performance.Stronger motivation contributes to improvement of English performance.Correlation values of the information media motivation and social responsibility motivation are the biggest and smallest respectively.Based on the preceding results of undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation,three strategies on how to enhance undergraduate pilots' English learning motivation are put forward from aspects of undergraduate pilots,English teachers,and teaching materials.