| Learning motivation is one of the most important influential factors of learners’ achievement,which affects their endeavour and tenacity.However,learner’s learning motivation is not static but may gradually decline under the influence of various negative factors,which is a common phenomenon called demotivation.For rural junior high school students,there are relatively more negative factors leading to their demotivation.Still,it has received little concern from researchers.This research aims to grasp the current situation of rural middle school students’ demotivation in learning English,investigate the main influencing factors that lead to the their demotivation so as to provide inspiration and suggestions for the front-line teachers.This study conducted questionnaires and interviews with 475 students and 8 English teachers in a rural middle school in Yongzhou City,Hunan Province.The main questions are as follows: 1)What is the proportion of students with English learning demotivation? 2)Are there significant differences in demotivation among students of different genders or grades? 3)What are the primary factors that cause their demotivation? 4)What strategies can be applied to reduce the English learning demotivation according to the findings?The results of the study are as follows: 1)The rate of demotivation among rural junior high school students is as high as 70.5%,indicating that it is a kind of universal phenomenon.Moreover,students’ performance in four aspects of motivational behavior: attention,initiative,persistence and effort is not satisfactory;2)Boys and girls with demotivation have the same proportion,but girls generally outperform boys in the performance of motivational behavior;As for the grade differences,the seventh graders have lower rates of demotivation than the other two grades,and they also perform better in the above four aspects of motivational behavior.3)The most prominent demotivator is the learning environment,followed by the learners themselves,thirdly the social environment,and finally teacher-related factors.This is different from those previous studies,which believed that teachers or students themselves were the most influential factors.Finally,combining theories and actual findings,this paper attempts to propose specific strategies for teachers to reduce the English learning demotivation of rural middle school students from the four factors concluded above. |
