Demotivating Factors In College English Learning And Its Solutions

According to Corder, anyone can learn a language well as long as he or she is full of motivation. This succinctly describes the importance of motivation in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). As one of the most powerful influential factors in language learning, motivation has been regarded first as the initial impetus to learn a second language, then as the driving force in the long and often tedious learning process. There are two aspects for the term"motivation"in its general sense: what makes a person want to learn a foreign language, and what makes him or her keep on learning the language, that is what motivated him or her in learning. After Gardner and Lambert shed light on the complexities of motivation via their studies in the late 1950's, much research has been done on learning motivation in the field of second language (L2) learning and with fruitful achievements. However, language learning motivation is a somewhat more complicated construct, considering that language is always socially and culturally bound and hence, quite different from other school subjects. We should notice that there is also another aspect of motivation that probably every learner has encountered sometimes: temporary loss of interest in learning,or experience of less motivated situation, called"potential motivational pitfalls and danger zones"by D?rnyei, this"dark side"of motivation is demotivation. As negative effect on motivation, demotivating influences may reduce motivation in SLA process. Due to its direct educational implication, this"dark side"of motivation or demotivation ought to receive more attention; however it has been almost neglected in the research of L2 motivation. The author deems that in addition to knowing what motivates a learner, being aware of the hazards that undermine motivation is also essential both for teachers and for learners. Therefore, demotivation factors and its solutions in English learning process is set as the author's research objective. This paper will begin by examining mainstream research on L2 motivation, followed by discussions on the findings of the previous studies on demotivation, weighing their strengths and weaknesses. Then the author will focus on the influential factors of demotivation through the analysis of subjects, data collection and procedures. Combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, through qualitative research, the collected data will be analyzed in order to provide evidence and deeper interpretation for the finding of quantitative research. Findings will be presented in the second from last chapter, starting with a descriptive account of the demotivating factors, the relation between gender and demotivation, between learning achievement and demotivation. The last chapter will conduct suggestive solutions to demotivation, based on the investigation and findings of this research, trying to shed more light on future studies on demotivation. Conclusive summary will be made at last, including the limitations and suggestions for further study.