An Investigation Of Learning Motivation Of English Underachievers In Senior High Schools

Nowadays,we are still at the swift period in education in China,which is from the test-oriented education to quality-oriented education.It emphasizes to improve students' essential qualities,develop their intellectual potential and promote the formation of their individual characteristics.However,there are still a great number of students who have learning difficulty and can't achieve good achievements in primary and middle school.People usually call them poor students,namely,underachievers.Learning difficulty is a common phenomenon that exists in the whole process of study,which is caused by a lot of reasons.Then the emotion factor is one of the main causes,among which the learning motivation is believed as the crucial factor that influences the learners' performance in foreign language learning.The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(experimental)published by the Ministry of Education in 2003 points out that English learning in high school has important meaning for senior high school students.It requires the senior students should have clearer and sustained learning motivation and the ability of autonomous learning.The needs of students' mental and emotion development should be satisfied in the senior English teaching.Thus,it is necessary to explore the learning motivation of English underachievers in senior high schoolsIn this research,the author conducted an investigation based on the relavant motivation theories.200 questionnaires were distributed to the underachievers selected in grade one in a senior high school in Lingbao city and 186 valid questionnaires were recycled.Then data analysis Microsoft ware was used to analyze the valid data.Besides,3 high achievers and 3 underachievers were selected as the objects of a case study,in which classroom observations and interviews were employed to further explore the situation and factors affect learning motivation of English underachieves.The results of the research show that the underachievers have a low motivation level and most of them have a strong sense of instrumental motivation.They think they learn English only for passing the National College Entrance Examination.However,there is only a few students are curious about the culture and customs in English-speaking countries.Their learning motivation is influenced by many factors.The author divides them mainly into inner factors and outer factors.The inner factors include the students' interest,attribution,self-efficacy and learning anxiety;while the outer factors include academic environment,family education and teachers' teaching style.At the end of the thesis,the author puts forward some suggestions to stimulate the learning motivation of English underachievers.This thesis concentrates on the English underachieves in senior high schools and conducts a study on their learning motivation.The author hopes that the results and suggestions of this study can be helpful for those English teachers working in senior high schools to care about the underachievers' growth and arouse their learning motivation in order to improve their English learning achievements.However,this thesis still has some deficiencies that need to be perfected because of the limitations of the practical conditions and researcher's theoretical level.