Study On The Motivation Of College Students With Learning Difficulties In English Based On Self-Determination Theory

With the rapid development of China's economy,the requirements for college students,especially their English proficiency,are constantly increasing.The self-determination theory includes three motivation types: amotivation,extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation,constituting a general and comprehensive framework for describing different motivational orientations of learners systematically,which greatly influences the foreign language teaching.The students with English learning difficulties hold an indispensable ratio in almost every university.Therefore,the research on their motivational orientations should be paid more attention.This thesis targeted the college students with English learning difficulties as research subjects and conducted an empirical study,investigating whether the college students with English learning difficulties also characterized by the motivational orientations continuum of the self-determination theory,and exploring the motivational characteristics of the college students with English learning difficulties.In addition,a special teaching mode,the RSAAS model(the acronym of five major elements that influence the learning motivation:relatedness,self-determination,attention,action and success),was applied to the experimental class composed of college students with English learning difficulties to testify its effect in promoting students' extrinsic motivation internalization and improving their intrinsic motivation.By analyzing the data of questionnaires collected,the motivational orientations continuum of the self-determination theory also exists in college students with English learning difficulties.What's more,the research shows that college students with English learning difficulties have evident extrinsic motivation but their amotivation's index is not very high.Results of the empirical study show that the extrinsic motivation of students in experimental class has been greatly internalized and the intrinsic motivation has been significantly improved,which proves that the RSAAS model adopted in this thesis can effectively promotes the internalization of students' extrinsic motivation and improve students' intrinsic motivation.