A Study Of The Learning Motivation Of High Level Chinese Learners In Nigeria

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa.The establishment of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and the People's Republic of China dates back to 1971,when the two countries signed several bilateral trade and strategic cooperation agreements aimed at promoting economic relations.In China,one belt,one road investment forum,has been established in recent years to further strengthen economic and trade relations with People's Republic of China.This has motivated and inspired many Nigerians to start learning Chinese.Motivation as a concept has widely been researched and accepted as one of the important factors that determines the rate of success in second language acquisition.This is because motivation provides the initial impulse needed to start the second language learning and the momentum to continue with the process until proficiency is achieved.Insufficient motivation can cause even students with outstanding abilities not to achieve the desired goal,and neither are befitting curricula and commendable teaching skills adequate on their own to guarantee success.Therefore,the success or failure in second language acquisition depends largely on the learner's degree of motivation.The aim of this paper is to discover the main learning motivation of high level Chinese learners in Nnamdi Azikiwe Confucius Institute Nigeria,in order to educate those at the lower and intermediate level on how to reach high level without giving up,and also to provide recommendations and suggestions that will lead to greater efficiency in teaching Chinese as a second language.In order to achieve the objective of our study,literature reviews,questionnaires,interviews were used to gather information and SPSS was used as analytical tool.The following results were obtained:1.The main learning motivation of high level Chinese learners in Nnamdi Azikiwe Confucius Institute is interest motivation,succeeded by instrumental motivation.There is noremarkable difference(P>0.05)in their learning motivation due to difference in gender,ethnicity and Chinese level.2.The student's learning habit and their learning motivation are very closely related.Students with good learning habit are highly motivated students,while those with bad learning habit are not sufficiently motivated or lack motivation.3.Interview with the students revealed that interest motivation stimulated majority of them to start learning Chinese,but during the course of learning,instrumental motivation replaced the interest motivation.As beginners,they also encountered a lot of setbacks in learning Chinese as a second language,but due to their teachers help and advice they were able to surmount all the difficulties and achieved their desired goal.4.Interview with the teachers also revealed that those students who persist in learning Chinese up to high level are those who possess interest and instrumental motivation,and those who gave up did so due to different reasons such as finance,time,lack of confidence,interest,diligence etc.We also discovered that all the teachers are willing to convince the students to continue learning Chinese and that a good number of students listen to teacher's advice and continue.Due to the inability of the researcher to contact the students who have given up on learning Chinese,therefore the researcher could not understand the reasons why they gave up.If this research could combine the reasons of those students who have stopped learning Chinese,it would have made the conclusion more comprehensive and scientific.