Studies on motivation of foreign language learning.doc

1. introduction there are many factors that affect foreign language learning, such as age, motivation attitude, personality intelligence and aptitude, of which motivation is considered to be one of the most important factors to foreign language learning. motivation is so important that many foreign language researchers have been researching on it in the last there decades. robert carder canadian psychologist is one of the earliest representative researchers. gardner and his colleagues and students went on investigating motivation as a major attribute in foreign language. gui schichun. a chinese famous linguist also argues that motivation is one of the most important socio-psychological factors to foreign language. china has the largest number of learners of english as a foreign language in the world; their aims vary from person to person. its necessary and meaningful to conduct a research into them. in fact, learners should know why they study the language. that is to say, they should understand what their real motivation is. of course, it is also important for the teachers to understand the motivations of students. just as oxford says: “in case teachers do not know the motivations of students at all. how do they trigger their students?”, nevertheless, english teachers rarely pay any attention to their students motivation in english learning. in our country, many foreign language teachers even do not know what motivation is, let alone knowing how to cultivate the motivation of their students. so this paper will explore and discuss the cultivation of motivation in foreign language learning in terms of the definition of motivation, the importance of motivation in foreign language learning, and how to cultivate learners motivation in foreign language learning.2. literature review2.1. definition of motivation there has been a considerable amount of research conducted on motivation in the last few decades. however, there has been lack of a consensus with regard to its exact meaning, and the term has come to be used in different ways by different people. although scholars admit the importance of motivation in language learning, so far, there has been no general agreement on the definition of motivation.concepts of motivation in general sense wall says that “motivation is perhaps the most obscure and difficult of all theoretical issues in general and educational psychology.” the word of motivation is derived from the latin term “motivus” which suggests the activating properties of the processes involved in psychological motivation the gale encyclopedia of psychology defines motivation as “the drive that produces goal-directed behavior.” motivation is regarded as part of the influences that control the initiation, direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior. other scholars also explain what the motivation means in their own opinion. motivation is “a theoretical construct used to explain the initiation, direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of behavior, especially goal-directed behavior”. gardner asserts that “motivation is the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language”. pintrich and schunk think that “motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained”. williams and burden define motivation according to social constructivist framework. in their opinion, motivation can be defined as “a state of cognitive and emotional arousal, which leads to a conscious decision to act, and which gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain a previous set goal or goals” d?rnyeis defines it as “a process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises, initiates action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby terminate action, or until the planned outcome has been reached” motivation is a broad term involving many concepts. that is why many terms created to define it, those definitions usually only partially cover what the term motivation really implies. in spite of the difference in the definition of motivation, the meaning can be boiled down into three points: why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, how hard they are going to pursue2.2. intrinsic and extrinsic motivation motivation can be described in many types and the main broad categories are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. intrinsic motivation is a response to needs that exist within the learner, such as curiosity, the need to know, and feelings of competence or growth. it exists when someone works because of an inner desire to accomplish a task successfully, whether it has some external value or not. in other word, students are willing to learn the knowledge that is new and interesting in the purpose of fulfilling of their curiosity, the need to know and feeling of competence and growth that cause intrinsic motivation. their purpose of learning is also the enjoyment of the learning process not for praise or rewards. students with intrinsic motivation orientation study english on their own initiative and tend to prefer moderately challenging tasks. this has a great value and importance in learning, for the inward interest makes them self-starting and self-perpetuating and can keep the motivational machinery going for a long timein contrast, extrinsic motivation is as an outward force in the form of expectation, praise and rewards powers students in english learning. it exists when individuals are motivated by an outcome that is external or functionally unrelated to the activity in which they are engaged. when students work hard to win their parents favor, gain teachers praise, or earn rewards such as pocket money, we can rightly conclude that their motivation is primarily extrinsic, their reason for work and study lie primarily outside themselves and the aim of learning is not for the knowledge itself but the outward rewards in order to gain self-esteem. and the outward praise and rewards encourage students to study more activelyboth intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are important, inseparable and complementary to each other in english learning. intrinsic motivation is the type of inner drive that propels students forward and onward with continuous energy fueled by its own curiosity and interest. however, in the real world not all of the students are automatically energized to perform this or that task, or to learn about this or that topic. sometimes, a good grade, the threat of failing and praise move students from an inactive to an active state. the use of rewards as extrinsic motivators has sometimes been found to increase intrinsic motivation, especially when the rewards are contingent on the quality of the performance rather than simply on participationit is clear that extrinsic motivators are sometimes necessary either 1 to get students started in the first place, or 2 to start them down a track that they might not know exists. however, overstressing the use of extrinsic motivation can stifle intrinsic motivation.2.3. studies on motivation of foreign language learning many europeans, i.e., gardner, brown, have preceded a quite high level of motivation research. they consider instrumental motivations are less important factors in predicting learning success, whereas it is quite contrary that instrumental motivations are the commonest among the college non-english majors. in china, a lot of researchers pay attention to learners motivation. the notion is accepted that motivation can lead to successful learning. regarding with the primary motivation of english learning, teacher zhou liping and shang wu from foreign school of hu bei university expressed their opinion in the article ofaccording to their viewpoint, integrating teaching is more useful than mechanical teaching in the formal teaching process. while, the reality is that learners have little interest in the culture of target language, or that they seldom have chance to communicate with people from countries of the target language. so the learners mainly learn english under the influence of mechanical motivation. teacher shi baolin made his research on the learning motivation in different terms according to time sequence. with the time going on, the learning goal of college students changes relatively. however, such an analysis is a genetic one without considering about the environment and reality. not all of the students take passing cet4 as their learning goal at the beginning. in most situations, even if attending the entrance exams for postgraduate schools or entering foreign companies is the aim of students after graduation, such goals indeed cause little affection on english learning. such a conclusion has no universality since there are too many tolerant conditions. differently, teacher zhou liping and shang wu made the research from the goals of learning english. they analyzed the different influence on the english learning in different environment. though it seems that they gave the two motivations a suitable circumstance, they over stressed the environments effect on the learning motivation of english learners, without considering about the psychological situation and background of learners. thus, their conclusion also possesses one-sidedness.3. the study in china, there are many researches on motivation in foreign language learning. generally speaking, studies on learning motivation in china mainly focus on the motivation types in chinese students, or the relationship between motivation and the learning strategies, learning results and self-identity. however, seldom researches touch the field of art students motivation. since their language proficiency is comparatively low at high school, there is an emergent need to investigate and initiate non-english majors students motivation. therefore, the author conducted this study. this research investigates non-english major students english learning motivation from chinese language and literature class two in the college of literature and journalism and communication in gannan normal university.questionnaires will be delivered to participants; 120 questionnaires were handed out to 120 students and 100 were returned. the main methods used in this research were the survey of references on the problem of language learning motivation, programme of statistical data analysis spss statistical package for social sciences. the percentages of each category of motivational variables were computed to describe the characteristics of non-english majors efl motivation.3.1 subjects the third-year non-english majors have learned english for two years in gannan normal university. the level of their english learning should meet the requirement of college english teaching. the total number of the subjects is 120 third-year students of 06 chinese language and literature class two in the college of literature and journalism and communication in gannan normal university. 120 hundred participants are non-english students in their first or second year. they are chosen because they are fulfilling their required english course. they must pass the exam every term and take the cet-4 in order to get a good job after graduation. it takes them about five minutes to finish the questionnaire.3.2 questionnaire the questionnaire contains two parts. table 1 presents the structure of the questionnaire along with the number of items for each part and category. part one gives blanks for personal information i.e., name, gender, . part two can be further divided into 4 categories of motivational variables. the first category is questions about intrinsic learning motivation. the second category is questions about extrinsic learning motivation. the third category is questions about intensity of learning motivation. the fourth category is questions about attribution. considering their level of english, the questionnaire was presented in chinese. the survey yielded a 83.3% response rate for a final sample of 100.table1. structure of the questionnairecontentscategoryno. of itempart 1personal detailspart 2a. intrinsic purposes1.2.3.4.5b. extrinsic purpose6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19c. intensity20.21.22.23.24d. attribution25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.each student was given a questionnaire during the break. the questionnaire was completed under the supervision. before giving out the investigation, they were assured that their answers remained anonymous and had no relation with their final scores. they were told to be as accurate and honest as possible since the success of the investigation depended upon their answers and they were required to complete the questionnaire within the break for 20 minutes. no communication was allowed between students during the completion of the questionnaire in case that they would be influenced by others opinions. after all the questionnaire sheets were collected, they were checked, sorted and numbered.3.3data collection and analysis3.3.1 analyses on table 2 ones motivation source can be divided in to two types. one is intrinsic motivation that is from ones own, the other is extrinsic motivation which is from external factors. table 2 presents the mean of the subjects responses to the first category of motivation. as shown in the table, only 19% of them feel strongly agree that they like english. however, 25% students showed that they dont like english strongly. question 2 shows that the tendency is they like english a little. as question 4 shows, many students dont like english, but they know that english is of great importance to them. overall, their learning motivation of english is on the average.table 2. intrinsic purposesintrinsic purposesstrongly disagreedisagreeneutralagreestrongly agree125%26%18%12%19%222%17%19%24%18%321%21%13%24%24%414%15%9%17%45%514%9%9%25%43%3.3.2 analyses on table 3 according to table 3, students english learning motivation is mainly stressed on widening their outlook, reading english books and passing exams. 68% strongly disagree that the reason of studying english is they want