A Study On College English Teachers' Use Of Motivational Strategies In Class

The National Medium and Long-term Education Reform Program(2010-2020)and the Requirements for College English Teaching have unanimously agreed that teachers should pay more attention on the individuality of the students,cultivate students' interests and motivations towards English learning,encourage students to ask more questions and focus on the students' comprehensive development.As a result,we need to find out how frequent teachers use motivational strategies in class and how effective these motivational strategies are to students.The current research selected 168 teachers and 231 students from universities in Wenzhou like Wenzhou University,Wenzhou Medical University,Wenzhou Vocational and Technical College,Wenzhou-Kean University and Wenzhou University Oujiang College.Data got from the questionnaires is analyzed by SPSS 22.0.Mean values,mean differences and the relation between the frequency and effectiveness are worked out by using the descriptive analysis and independent sample test in SPSS 22.0.The results from the questionnaire show that teachers value offering feedback to students' effort and progress a lot more than students,teachers value creating a relaxing and pleasant classroom atmosphere a lot more than students,neither teachers nor students like to carry out competition between groups to activate classroom atmosphere,and teachers didn't like it a little bit more,teachers are not too keen on using more advanced online learning software,but students welcome them a lot.both teachers and students attach great significance on learning tasks,teachers care more about explaining the tasks clearly but students care more about the deadlines,teachers seem to hold a stronger belief that regular quizzes should be given out to students to evaluate learning than students,students find teachers' efforts to motivate them by boasting their self-confidence not as effective as teachers' expectations and both teachers and students think students' autonomy is not so important as other motivational strategies.,From the semi-structured interview,data shows that students don't expect college is so effort-demanding and they are more enthusiastic about the advanced technologies and applications.Students like teachers with natural and kind heart and are more inclined to study in an active atmosphere.Almost all the students admitted previous learning experience has consumed their autonomy.Because of age differences,psychological differences,generation gap and life styles,teachers have different attitude towards technology,tasks,tests and autonomy.teachers believe that students are not too active in group activities for the traditional Chinese culture put more emphasis on harmony instead of competition.Teachers warn that attention should be given to classes being interesting and entertaining.Teachers also think it is because of students' weak self-consciousness,they lack learning autonomy.In order to tackle these problems,teachers need to find ways to facilitate the generation of students' motivation,be constantly aware of the dynamics of students' motivation.Teachers can apply scaffolding teaching and other methods to promote learners' autonomy,and adopt a more comprehensive evaluation system to assess learners' efforts and progress as well.