A Research On The English Learning Motivation And Its Correlation With Learning Achievement Of Senior High School Students

As an important field of second language acquisition research, learning motivation is regarded as a crucial influencing factor of English learning and has gained wide attention from researchers at home and abroad. The increasingly frequent international communications has made English as one of the indispensable skills of talents today, which generates higher requirement of English teaching and language proficiency. Under this circumstance, it is of great significance to explore English learning motivation and its correlation with learning achievement, which can provide pedagogical implications for improving the efficiency of English teaching and learning. However, relevant previous researches at home and abroad were mainly about college students, senior high school students were seldom involved. Moreover, there are few researches concerning the difference in gender, language proficiency and students of liberal arts and students of science students. However as the subjects of teaching and learning, students' individual difference should be taken into consideration when exploring their motivation and its correlation with learning achievement.Therefore, based on previous researches and the characteristics of senior high school students' English learning, through questionnaire survey and SPSS statistic analysis software, this study probed the differences in senior high school students' motivation and its correlation with learning achievement from three dimensions:gender, major and current language proficiency.After analysis and discussion of statistics, several main conclusions can be deduced: 1) Senior high school students held relatively strong motivation, while instrumental motivation was stronger than integrative motivation; 2) there were differences with respect to genders, majors and language proficiencies:female students had strong motivation than male students, the motivation of students of liberal arts was stronger than that of students of science, there was significant difference in motivation between high achievers and low achievers and high achievers were much more motivated than low achievers; 3) the correlation between general motivation, integrative motivation and learning achievement were statistically significant while instrumental motivation have little relation with test score; 4) in terms with the correlation between motivation and learning achievement, male students showed stronger correlation than female students, students of liberal arts showed stronger correlation than students of science, the correlation between the two variables of low achievers was stronger than that of high achievers.The finding provides pedagogical implications for both teachers and learners. Teachers, as the instructor and facilitator of English learning, should adopt feasible ways to activate and strengthen the English learning motivation of students, especially male students, low achievers and students of science. Integrative motivation should be emphasized and cultivated among students. As for English learners, they should be aware of the function of motivation, especially integrative motivation and cultivate them themselves consciously. Besides, instrumental motivation should be dealt with appropriately. It can be seen as the driving force when accomplishing short-term goals, but it can not be too much reinforced.