A Study On The Relationship Between English Learning Motivation And English Learning Strategies For Senior High School Students

Learning motivation and learning strategies are considered to be two of the mostimportant factors influencing foreign language learning, which have been concerned bymany educators and researchers. But the study on the relationship between Englishlearning motivation and learning strategies of senior high school students is still scarce.So the present study carries out a survey of learning motivation and learning strategies ofthe students in NO.3Senior High School of Ganzhou. The purpose of the study is toanswer the following three questions:1. what are the characteristics of senior high schoolstudents’ English learning motivation, and what are the differences about gender andgrades in English learning motivation?2. What are the characteristics of learningstrategies employed by senior high school students, and what are the differences aboutgender and grades in learning strategies use?3. What is the correlation between seniorhigh school students’ English learning motivation and learning strategies? Data wereanalyzed by SPSS software11.0, and then got a further understanding of the issues in thisstudy by interviewing.The major findings are as follows:1. As for the learning motivation, the senior high school students are at the mediumdegree of motivation. Among the three types of motivations, the instrumental motivationstands at the top place, then followed by cultural motivation and learning situationalmotivation. In the instrumental motivation, learning achievement motivation ranks thehighest, then followed by personal development motivation and information mediummotivation.2. As for the learning strategies, the senior high school students are not often usingthem. With a figure of3.3416，memory strategies have the highest mean, followed bycompensation strategies, social strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies,cognitive strategies.3. In terms of gender difference, there are significant differences between boys andgirls in every category of learning motivation except for learning situational motivation. And boys and girls also have significant difference in using learning strategies except forcompensation strategies and memory strategies. Girls generally have a higher score thanboys both in learning motivation and strategies.4. Senior high school students are motivated differently and use language learningstrategies differently as they are in different grade. There is no significant difference inlearning motivation by grades in all. But significant differences exist in the instrumentalmotivation between Grade One and Grade Three. And there are significant differencesbetween Grade One and Grade Two as well as Grade One and Grade Three in learningstrategies.5. Learning motivation has the positive correlation with learning strategies. Culturalmotivation has the strongest correlation with learning strategies(r=.673, p<.01), followedby instrumental motivation; the weakest correlation is between learning situationalmotivation and learning strategies.