The Relationship Between The Junior High School Students'Self-Motivating Strategy Use And Their English Learning Motivation From The Perspective Of L2MSS

A large number of theoretical and empirical studies at home and abroad are based on the ESL learning context,and they attempt to explore learners' motivation and the motivational strategies used by teachers to stimulate learner's motivation,mainly focusing on senior high school students or university learners.Therefore,it is necessary to investigate the junior high school students' English learning motivation and self-motivating strategy use in the EFL context in order to help teachers understand and attach importance to students' motivation from individual perspective,and to encourage the junior high school students to acquire self-motivating strategies in their long-term development process.This study aims to investigate the relationship between the junior high school students' English learning motivation and their self-motivating strategy use,and attempts to answer the following research questions: 1)What is the current situation of the junior high school students' English learning motivation and self-motivating strategy use? 2)Are there any differences in the junior high school students' English learning motivation and their self-motivating strategy use across genders,grades and proficiency levels? 3)What is predictive power of self-motivating strategies for English learning motivation? 4)To what extent can self-motivating strategies predict English learning motivation?In order to answer the above questions,this study collected the information of the 77 participants recruited from three classes of a rural junior high school located in the city of Anqing: 13 students from Class 2,Grade 7;29 students from Class 3,Grade 8;35 students from Class 1,Grade 9.SPSS 25.0 software was performed to analyze the data from the questionnaires: 1)Descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze the current situation of the junior high school students' English learning motivation and their use of self-motivating strategies.2)Independent samples t-tests were used to examine the differences in their English learning motivation and self-motivating strategy use across different genders and grades.One-way analysis was used to examine the differences across proficiency levels.3)Pearson correlationanalysis was carried out to reveal whether there is a significant correlation between English learning motivation and self-motivating strategies.4)The predictive power of various self-motivating strategies for English learning motivation was tested under multiple regression analysis.The main findings are as follows: 1)The frequency of self-motivating strategies used by the junior high school students and their levels of English learning motivation are both high.2)No statistically significant difference is found between male and female students,or among students of different grades in terms of their English learning motivation and self-motivating strategy use.However,high-proficiency learners have higher English learning motivation and self-motivating strategy use frequency than medium-proficiency learners and low-proficiency learners.The biggest difference is in their ideal selves and their emotional control strategy use.3)A significant correlation between English learning motivation and self-motivating strategies can be found.4)Metacognitive control strategies,self-consequating,emotional control strategies,satiation control strategies,commitment control strategies and environmental control strategies can significantly predict English learning motivation.This study indicates that the use of self-motivating strategies can effectively improve English learning motivation.It is a challenging task for teachers to enhance students' motivation in learning by encouraging them to acquire self-motivating strategies.