On Tibetan Trilingual Middle School Students’ Motivation In Learning English

This thesis is an empirical study of English learning motivation among Tibetan middle school studentsin Tianzhu Area. It aims to investigate Tibetan middle school students‘motivation types and reveal theinterrelations among motivation types, motivational intensity and English achievement. The study alsopresents some practical implications for teaching and learning English in Tibetan areas.The data was collected from the questionnaires based on the related literature which are composed ofthree parts: personal information, Gao Yihong‘s motivation type scale adapted for Tibetan middle schoolstudents and motivational intensity scale. The participants are120Senior2―Tibetan-Chinese-English‖trilinguals from Tianzhu Tibetan middle school of Tianzhu Autonomous County who were asked tocomplete the questionnaires. Then all the data was subjected to statistical analysis with the system ofStatistical Package for Social Science(SPSS17.0), including1) Factor analysis which is aimed to classifytypes of TMS English learning motivation;2) Correlational analysis of motivational types and motivationintensity;3) Correlational analysis of motivation types, motivational intensity and TMS‘Englishachievement;The present research has the following findings:1)Tibetan middle school students involve three types of motivation for their English learning: cultural,instrumental and situational, as well as eight sub-types of motivation(parents and teacher expectation andencouragement, intrinsic interest, social responsibility, learning situation motivation, learning anxiety,going abroad, individual development and attitude motivation).2)Six out of the eight researched motivation subtypes correlate significantly with motivational intensityexcept for individual development motivation and learning situation motivation, while learning anxietycorrelates negatively with motivation intensity.3)The correlations between achievement and motivation intensity are unanimously higher than thosebetween achievement and other motivation types. Therefore, learning effort is a better predictor toachievement rather than motivation types.In terms of the learning, the thesis provides some suggestions for initiating and maintaining Tibetanmiddle school students‘English learning motivation, eg. fostering learners‘positive attitude toward Englishlearning, maintaining TMS‘interest in English learning, and having a better understanding of TMS‘characteristics, etc. It is hoped that this study can contribute a lot to English teaching in Tibetan areas.