A Research On English Learning Motivation Of Students In A Higher Vocational College

Learning motivation plays an important role among various factors influencing English learning. In recent years, learners’ learning motivation has attracted more and more attention from scholars both at home and abroad. Many researchers have made a large number of theoretical research and empirical research on English learning motivation.However, to our disappointment, these researches are mainly limited to undergraduate or postgraduate while the researches on Higher Vocational College students are rather limited. But with the rapid development of science and economy, Higher Vocational College students have formed a large proportion of the students in the whole education system. By the year of2013, there had been1266higher vocational colleges.In Wuhan,there are32higher vocational colleges. Therefore, people are increasingly concerned with how to increase students’ motivation to learn English.The author has made a quantitative research on100students in Hubei finance&Taxation College with the employment of SPSS20.0and EXCEL to analyze the relationship between learning motivation and such variables as gender and different level of English. This thesis aims to answer the following questions:(1) What is the status quo of English learning motivation of higher vocational college students?(2) Is there any gender difference in English learning motivation?(3) Is there any difference between the students of high English language proficiency and low English language proficiency in motivation?This thesis collected data by adopting the questionnaire designed by Gao Yihong(2004) and made frequency analysis,descriptive analysis and independent-sample t-test with SPSS20.0.The findings are as follows:(1)Students in Higher Vocational College are mediumly motivated to learn English,they learn English mainly for the reason of personal development,and then for test score,inner interest,information medium,social responsibility and learning environment,but lastly for the reason of going abroad. (2) The female students in Higher Vocational College are more highly motivated to learn English than the male students in the overall English learning motivation and there is a significant difference between the male and female students in Higher Vocational College in the overall English learning motivation.(3) The highly proficient students are more highly motivated to learn English than the lowly proficient ones and there is a significant difference.Furthermore, this thesis also analyzes and discusses the internal factors (such as the attitude towards learning English, learning need, learning interest, etc.) and external factors (such as learning environment, the difficulty of the learning task, teachers’ appraisal, etc.) that influence English learning motivation. Finally, based on the findings, the thesis provides some suggestions for teachers in Higher Vocational College-finding out students’ main motivation to learn English and main factors that affect learning motivation; always taking into consideration the influence of some variables such as gender and different level in English on learning motivation.Meanwhile, the thesis also puts forward its limitations and provides future research direction.