An Empirical Study Of Learning Motivation Of English Major Undergraduates In Sports Background Institutes

In the process of higher education, foreign language teaching plays amore and more important role. In the background that English for GeneralPurposes (EGP) has been unable to meet the social demand for professionalEnglish talents, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has received more andmore attention in higher education. Many professional higher educationalinstitutions have established ESP-oriented English majors, including elevendomestic institutes of physical education.In teaching process, learning motivation is considered as one of theimportant factors that affect language learners’ performance. Scholars fromhome and abroad have done many empirical and theoretical studies oflearners’ motivation. However, do motivation types in English Majorundergraduates from sports background institutes have any correlation withgrades, pre-enrollment academic background, present achievement, classcommittee membership? Based on this the author conducted a survey, inorder to further understand the learning motivation types, so as to find asolution to the problems discovered, stimulate their motivation. This researchis based on the related literature, a questionnaire survey and an interview. The research object is undergraduate English major students from Hebei Instituteof Physical Education.The research indicates that effect of grades on motivation types lies inthat freshmen and sophomores’ motivation types are mainly interest inEnglish class, to higher grades instrumental motivation gradually increases,and they have stronger motivation in sports English(ESP subject); the effectof class committee membership lies in that class committee members’ Needand wish to learn sports English is significantly higher than average students;the effect of learning achievement lies in that high score students gets highermotivation in factor of Interest in English class and Need to pass exams; theeffect of pre-enrollment academic background lies in that arts backgroundstudents have stronger motivation in Interest in English class; Desire tocommunicate in English and Need to pass exams.Finally, the author puts forward some suggestions which includepromoting students’ need and interest to learn English; decreasing class sizeand increase the length and frequency of lessons; emphasizing cultures more;developing closer teacher-student relationship; increasing thelearners’goal-orientedness. All this aims to strengthen students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in order to improve English Majors’ motivation inEnglish learning and to achieve better teaching results.