An Investigation Into Secondary Vocational Students’ Motivation For English Learning

With our country entering WTO, the vocational education has gained rapid development in China. In the tenth five-year plan, the eleventh five-year plan and the twelfth five year plan, there are also new directions about vocational education, especially secondary vocational education. This shows that the Education Department starts to emphasis on secondary vocational education. Researching in students’ motivation is beneficial to improve the quality of teaching. English is a compulsory course which is absolutely necessary in the future. But secondary vocational students ignored it, even they hate it so much. So it is necessary to know the students’ motivation in order to achieve the target of English teaching.This study investigated 291 students in Huanggang Computer and Information Engineering Secondary Vocational School and Huanggang Senior Technical School. Questionnaire survey and the interview were employed to point out the students’ learning motivation and the factors of influencing their motivation. Analysis of the survey and the interview involved the following conclusions:1. Few of secondary vocational students have intrinsic motivation in English learning, while most of them have extrinsic motivation. They learn English for graduation certificate and for passing the university entrance exam. It belongs to certificate type motive.2. There were no significant differences in major, gender and grade. But there were different in single variable as following:Girl’s intrinsic motivation and motivation intensity are stronger than boys. They have more enthusiasm in learning English. And their learning attitude is more active than boys. In spare time, girl will spend more time in learning English.3. Teaching is an important factor which can have an impact on learning motivation. Students wouldn’t spend more time and effort in English study if they don’t think English is relevant to their life and professional skill development in the future. Besides, students would tired about boring English teaching, such as missing student interaction.In view of the analysis of the conclusions above and the writer’s teaching experience, there are some implications on raising their motivation.1. To raise students’ intrinsic motivation through positive psychological implications and strategies for gender-based teaching, especially for boys.2. To advocate and carry out vocational school entrance exam, so that every secondary vocational student has chance to enter into vocational school or university for further study. That can raise their extrinsic motivation. 3. To guide students facing up to difficulties boldly and correct their attitude towards English study. To improve students’self-efficacy can also raise motivation.4. To innovate teaching approach. A variety of teaching resources and props can enrich the contents of English teaching. Teaching in the factory or practicum area can increase learning interesting and practicalness. Because of different learning level, every school can divide students into several classes no matter what majors and grades. Besides, texts for English for Specific Purposes can arouse textbooks practicalness and students’ motivation and interests in English study.To enhance the efficiency of the English classroom and to change English study circumstance will arouse students’ extrinsic motivation, so that English ability will improve. Then students will be more interested in English learning because of improving ability. It will turn into intrinsic motivation which can also benefit to English teaching and the quality of teaching. That’s virtuous cycle for English teaching. The virtuous cycle is essential for secondary vocational education.