A Study Of English Learning Demotivation In Senior High School Students

Motivation is one of the most important factors that influence the rate and success of foreign languagelearning. A great deal of research has been done both at abroad and at home in this field. However, most ofthe studies are merely focused on the positive side of motivation that energizes learners or on the positiveside of motivation that leads to successful language learning, with little mentioning the negative side ofmotivation, namely, a temporary loss of interest in learning, or experience of less motivated situation,called potential motivational pitfalls and danger zones by D rnyei, this dark side of motivation isdemotivation. In1992, Gorham&Christophel carried out a research on demotivation in instructionalcommunication. Then Chambers started demotivation research in L2learning in1993, followed by Oxford(1998), D rnyei (1998), Ushioda (1998). In China, studies on demotivation only started in recent years andmost of them took college or university students as participants. In fact, demotivation is a commonphenomenon in foreign language learning context. Studying demotivation allows us to recognize factorsthat affect students foreign language learning from a new perspective. Finding out the causes ofdemotivation is helpful for us to take targeted measures to maintain or even enhance students motivation.Therefore, based on senior students as participants, the present study aims at investigating currentdemotivation situation and demotivation attribution of senior high school students, thereafter exploringdifferences in demotivation attribution among learners with different genders, grades and motivationintensity levels. And put forth the corresponding countermeasures for demotivation.The study employed a close-ended questionnaire and three semi-structure interviews for datacollection. Namely, a questionnaire, a not demotivated students interview, a seriously demotivatedstudents interview and a teachers interview so as to ensure the triangulation of the study. The participantsof the questionnaire were360public senior students from Gansu. Based on the analysis of the questionnaire,one motivated students and one demotivated students from each grade of each school, totally18werechosen as the interview participants. Meanwhile, one teacher from each grade of each school, totally9werechosen as teachers interview participants. All the statistics were given corresponding statistical analysiswith SPSS13.0. The study indicated that:1) Demotivation is very common among senior high school students, and most of them are inmoderate demotivation while others are in high demotivation. The questionnaire shows that thedemotivating factors that diminish the motivation of senior students involve both internal and externalfactors. Ten demotivating factors emerged from the study and based on their detrimental intensity they are listed as follows: lack of effective learning strategies, lack of intrinsic motivation, score-related reducedself-confidence,teacher-relatedfactors,theassignment,natureofthesubject,lackofproperlearningatmosphere,inadequate teaching facilities, learning contents and materials and peer influence. The factor of lack of effectivelearning strategies lists the top of them, which is inconsistent with the previous researches (e.g., Dornyei, etal) in those studies the most powerful demotivating factors are teacher-related factors. Meanwhile, the interviewresults show that besides the above ten demotivating factors, there are another five demotivating factors whicharedetrimentaltostudents Englishlearning,andtheyare:highpressure,age-relatedfactors,poorEnglishleaningfoundation, family influences and a frequent change of teachers. But these five one are not the mostdetrimental one.2) There are significant demotivating degree differences in terms of gender, grade and motivationintensity, but there are no significant differences among different grades of learners in terms of theirdemotivating degree on each demotivating factor.3) There are significant deferences between students of different genders, and between students ofdifferent motivation intensity in terms of their demotivating factors. In general, males and less motivatedlearners are more vulnerable to be demotivated by external factors while females and more motivatedstudents experienced a relatively more balanced influence by each demotivating factor. However, there isalmost no demotivating factor differences appeared among students of different grades.4) Given how to reduce or avoid the influences of demotivation on students English learning, theparticipants for the questionnaire proposed some suggestions. Namely, as for not demotivated students,self-reflection will be conducted firstly once they suffered from demotivation, while seriously demotivatedstudents are more pinning their hopes on the change of the external environment. At the same time, teachersin the interview provided some relevant and available suggestions as well. Taking all these suggestions intoaccount and based on the findings of the present study and some previous studies, correspondingdemotivation countermeasures and implications of the findings in the study for senior high school Englishteaching as well as the limitations and the recommendations for further study are discussed in the finalchapter.