A Survey On Factors Of Improving English Learning Motivation Of College Non-english Majors

Foreign language learning motivation is always the linguists and educators’researching focus. It’s also the hero of many academic articles of language learning.But with the development of world, motivation is changing in different times, socialbackgrounds and class educational environments. So it is necessary to study languagelearning motivation under current social, school and class educational environment.Under the background of Chinese English teaching, the survey has4aims.1. Whatfactors can improve the non-English majors’ English learning motivation?2. What isthe importance degree of these factors?3. How do the factors play their roles in thestudents’ English learning motivation?4. How are factors used by the college teachersand the students? The author hopes that the survey results could help college Englishteachers and students to find appropriate ways to improve their English learningmotivation.In the survey, the author takes Gao Yihong’s motivation questionnaire and theresults of open-ended questionnaire as basis for the design of closed questionnaire.After trail test and revise, the closed questionnaires are distributed to250non-Englishmajors of Shenyang Normal University. The collected data is disposed by SPSS18.0which supplies the ways of Frequency Distribution, Exploratory Factor Analysis andMean Analysis. Through Frequency Distribution, a rough data distribution state ispreformed; Exploratory Factor Analysis integrates the original variables into9factors;the Mean Analysis supplies a very clear statistics evidence for the importance degreeof every effective factor and their sub-items.The results show that there are9factors improving students’ English learningmotivation: language potency, scholastic achievement, intrinsic interest, classsituation, scholastic environment, individual honor, going abroad, social responsibilityand study state. Through the comparison of mean value, the author finds that “scholastic achievement” and “language potency” take the top position of importancedegree; conversely,“intrinsic interest” and “going abroad” get the least importantposition. At the same time, in the range of every effective factor,“CET examinations”and “job hunting” are playing the most important efficient role in improving students’English learning motivation of the real life.At the same time, from observation and interview, we find that different factorscan produce different effects in different English learning environments. For instance,when the exam is approaching, the factor of “scholastic achievement” can improvestudents’ English learning motivation greatly. Besides that, the thesis also gives somesuggestions from the aspects of teacher, student, university and family.