L2 Motivation And Activation Research On Non-English Major College Students

It has been a long time since the beginning of the research on second language acquisition around the end of the 1960s. During the development of SLA research motivation was always seen as a key factor in L2 learning. Because motivation plays a very important role in students' English learning process and there should be some practical ways for teachers to promote their students' learning motivation, this paper is intended to first make a brief investigation into and discussion about Chinese college students' English learning motivation types based on the very basic frame proposed by Gardner and Lambert's integrative and instrumental motivation patterns. And then, according to the research, the author made some practical suggestions in language learning classroom.The most influential motivation pattern is proposed by Gardner and Lambert (1972) who distinguish motivation as two types: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. The former occurs when the learner wishes to identify with the culture of the L2 group while the latter occurs when the learner's goals for learning the L2 are functional. A lot of related researches on motivation were done in the following years by linguists such as Brown (1981), who identifies three types of motivation: (1) global motivation, which consists of a general orientation to the goal of learning a L2;(2) situational motivation, which varies according to the situation in which learning takes place (the motivation associated with classroom learning is distinct from the motivation involved in naturalistic learning);(3) task motivation, which is the motivation for performing particular learning tasks. Moreover numbers of psychologists developed various motivation theories. While the ultimate purpose for all these researches was to facilitate students' L2 learning, many researchers placed their research focus on motivation stimulating. Chi-Kim Cheung (2001) believes that the use of popular culture is an effective way to motivate students' English learning in Hong Kong and he also points out the teachers' critical role in stimulatingstudents' learning motivation. It's supposed that effective teachers are enthusiastic, warm, understanding, stimulating and imaginative. They should choose different teaching methods and learning materials that will motivate their students. Besides, Paul Lennon (1993) made a clear description of the advanced learner's affective, social and motivational factors as well as teachers' role. Meanwhile, in China, many researchers also made the corresponding researches on students' English learning motivation activating, which is combined with the Chinese concrete situation.With the economic development in present China, English has been playing a much more important role than ever before. So researches on Chinese college students' English learning motivation and especially on the effective ways to stimulate their learning motivation are quite worth doing. But few of researches have been done to give real concrete suggestions for practical learning and teaching, which cater for students' own ideas. Upon this point the paper uses a questionnaire to give a rather comprehensive reflection to the above points. The survey was administered to 202 learners of English in Shanxi University. The questionnaire consists of two parts: agreement scale choice and open-ended questions. The 5 agreement scale choices range from totally disagree to totally agree numbered from 1 to 5. And the design of open-ended questions intends to require the subjects to give a further supplement to the first part. After the data collection and through the factor analysis and mean value counting, it reveals that college students' English learning motivation is quite mixed with both integrative and instrumental motivation. Next, according to the investigation results a basic frame for stimulating aspects of students' learning motivation was drawn out which includes the following four factors: students matter, learning environment, teacher and achievement or progress. The stimulating degree of this basic frame is classified as the following scale: the mean value between 0~l means having no stimulating role;1~2, least stimulating;2~3, not sure;3~-4, stimulating and 4~5, greatly stimulating. And the mean values for above four factors are respectively 3.275269, 3.869882, 3.489247 and3.048412. And the final stimulating degree reaches 3.420703 (the average value of the above four mean values) and it shows that if stimulating ways can take these four factors into account then they will be quite effective.The final step of this paper is to give some practical suggestions in the learning classroom accordingly. They are also proposed from four aspects: teaching materials, students' self-esteem or self-confidence, the teacher and the classroom atmosphere. Concrete suggestions were given according to these four aspects, which include using any possible ways to find out what the students' real needs, interests and their impressive experiences are and then adding them into the current curriculum;adding some English songs or some popular things in which students are most interested presently to the teaching curriculum to make English classes more vivid and more active in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere;providing as many opportunities as possible for students to achieve success in the language classroom;expressing the ideas that you do care about students and their progress;promoting interaction, cooperation and the sharing of personal information among students and letting them know more about each other;giving students praise or finding other ways to draw their attention to their strengths and abilities;developing a personal relationship with students;paying attention and listening to the students;trying to break the rigid seating pattern and making it more flexible based on the teaching and learning need and using a little bit humor during the teaching or learning process etc. Moreover, this paper also pays attention to English learners' own ideas about these problems, in an attempt to find out the motivation stimulating ways which can really be accepted by students themselves.In a word, the whole paper aims to find out effective ways which can promote college students' English learning motivation and meanwhile give teachers some practical suggestions which can help them with their teaching process.