A Research On The Correlation Between Locus Of Control And English Learning Motivation Of Non-English Majors

At present,although the reform of college English teaching is in full swing,the current teaching situation that easily leads to students' slackness and complacency in learning still exists.The Teaching Requirements for College English Curriculum clearly puts forward that college English teaching is divided into three levels: general requirement,intermediate requirement and more demanding requirement.The essence of how to meet these requirements lies in the necessity of giving priority to both improving students' English learning motivation and knowing their overall situation of locus of control.As stated by Gardner(1985),attitudes and motivation are important because they determine the extent to which the individuals with actively involving themselves in learning the language.In other words,it is a kind of driving force of pushing the learners to achieve the learning goals they have made.The strength of English learning motivation exerts considerable influence on the learners' English learning efficiency.In the mean time,locus of control has an important impact on their perception about the learning outcomes(Rotter,1958).So based on these,this study,by investigating the overall situation of English learning motivation and locus of control and still by analyzing their correlation among non-English majors,is expected to provide some effective and scientific suggestions for college English teaching.Based on behaviorism and humanism,this study mainly takes questionnaires as research method,and the research subjects are freshmen and sophomores of non-English majors chosen from Guangxi Normal University,128 in total.Non-English majors' English learning motivation questionnaire is mainly developed from Gao Yihong's questionnaire(2003),with a slight adjustment.There are seven dimensions in this questionnaire: intrinsic motivation,immediate achievement motivation,learning situation motivation,going abroad motivation,social responsibility motivation,individual development motivation and information media motivation.Non-English majors' locus of control questionnaire mainly takes a reference to Rotter's Internal —External Locus of Control Scale(1966),which consists of 29 questions(6 inserting questions and 23items),each item containing one internal locus of control statement and one external locus of control statement.This study is concerned about three questions:(1)What is the overall situation of non-English majors' English learning motivation?(2)What is the overall situation of non-English majors' locus of control?(3)What is the correlation between locus of control and English learning motivation among non-English majors?The study results show:(1)non-English majors' English learning motivation is at a medium level.To make it clear: individual development motivation ranks the top,followed by immediate achievement motivation,social responsibility motivation,intrinsic motivation,information media motivation,learning situation motivation and going abroad motivation.(2)The overall situation of non-English majors' locus of control is external locus of control.(3)Non-English majors' English learning motivation and locus of control are negatively correlated with each other.Based on these findings,in order to refine the current teaching situation and contribute to improving teaching efficiency,some scientific suggestions are put forward from the dual perspectives of teachers and students.For teachers,they should build favorable classroom atmosphere,provide students authentic teaching tasks,pay more attention to students' learning process,help students to build right attribution,and pay more attention to underdeveloped students.For students,they are supposed to improve their self-management ability and set up positive self-concept.