A Study Of English Learning Motivation And English Learning Strategies For Senior High School Students

This thesis reports on a survey of learning motivation and English learning strategies of the senior high school students. The purpose of the study is to know what drives the senior high school students to study English and what strategies they use when learning English and shed some light on the study of language learning motivation,motivation arousing,language learning strategies, strategy training, which will provide the senior high school teachers, especially the teachers in Chongqing, with evidence to improve teaching and help the students to study English better. The subjects under investigation were 471 senior school students from nine classes in Chongqing. Among them, 163 were from Grade One, 158 were from Grade Two, 150 were from Grade Three, 218 are boys and 153 are girls. In this study, an English learning questionnaire, which consists of personal information, learning motivation scale, and Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was administered to collect information about language learners' individual background, motivational intensity and learning strategy use. Statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS 15.0. The result shows:Senior high school students do not use language learning strategy often, with an average score of 2.84. Compensation strategies (m = 3. 05) and affective strategies (m =2.90)are reported as being used most frequently, while memory and social strategies are least frequently used.Senior high school students are medium motivated. Learning value has the highest mean, and then it is followed by resultative motivation, learning situation ,the students' intrinsic interest, extrinsic motivation and effort.Senior high school students are motivated differently and use language learning strategies differently as they are in different grade. The difference is significant in effort, learning value, memory strategy and affective strategy between grade One and grade Three. Grade Two is a comparatively steady stage, and there is no significant difference between grade One and grade Two or Grade Two and Three either in learning motivation or in learning strategy.There are significant differences between boys and girls in every category of learning motivation except in extrinsic motivation and boys and girls also have significant difference in using learning strategy except in Compensation strategies and affective strategies. Girls generally have a higher score than boys both in motivation and strategy.There is positive correlation between every category of language learning strategy and every categories of learning motivation except external requirements. Effort degree has the strongest correlation with every category of language learning strategy except meta-cognitive strategies which is most related to intrinsic interest. Resultative motivation has the least correlation with learning strategy.