Research On English Learning Demotivation Among Chinese University Students Abroad

In the field of Second Language Acquisition,motivation has always been a heat topic for the reason that it does influence the efficiency of a language learner.Researches on motivation have been well conducted both inside and outside China in diversified contexts.However,as the dark side of motivation,English learning demotivation has not caught as many eyes as motivation.Researches on demotivation mostly focus on university students and high school students in domestic context.However,given that a rapid increasing number of Chinese students tend to study and already are studying abroad in the target language(taking English as an example)environment,motivation and demotivation among these English learners are of great importance and necessity to be paid attention to and explored.Therefore,the participants of this study are Chinese university students in University of Leicester,which is located in the United Kingdom.The research questions in this study are:(1)current situation on English learning demotivation among Chinese university students in University of Leicester;(2)main factors leading to English learning demotivation for these certain participants;(3)possible ways of remotivation.To explore these three questions,both qualitative(interview and two open-ended questions in the questionnaire)and quantitative(30-item Likert scale investigation in the questionnaire)approaches have been adopted.The main findings of this study are that(1)the phenomenon of EFL demotivation is quite common and the degree is also quite severe;(2)five main demotivating dimensions have been located: internal factors,school-related factors,textbooks and reading materials,social and cultural influence and study pressure on assignments.Almost each dimension above contains its own factors and some other potential factors have also been discovered;(3)six possible ways of remotivation have been proposed: positive influence of friends,classmates and other people;the enhancement of time management and self-discipline;proactively seeking more supervision;the necessity of English;stimulation gained from past failure and to proactively raise interest in English by some particular means and activities.At the end of this thesis,implications(both practical and theoretical),limitations of this study and future research directions have also been proposed.