Study On Factors Of The Weakening Motivation Of Thai Students Studying Chinese

In recent years, the number of people studying Chinese language, especially high school students, has been gradually growing. However, after studying Chinese for some time, many students cannot use Chinese as tool of communication in their daily lives hence their motivation weakens. When the students are at point where they have to select their major courses, they give up Chinese language courses and pick up other courses instead.From the research, the author uses the third graders and the Chinese major students at the middle school of Hatyaiwittayalaisomboonkulkanya in Thailand as research subjects and analyses the motives of learning Chinese language and course selection at the University level by means of questionnaires. The data collection method is by use of interview methods and classroom observation method to analyze the factors that lead to the weakening of motivation.The study found that 66.7% of the students did not choose to study Chinese voluntarily but curiosity, trends, job search, pressure from parents and other external factors motivated them to study Chinese language. In the process of learning Chinese, the course content and test difficulty; lack of self-confidence; monotony in learning; teachers' personality and teaching methods; teaching environment and other factors will cause students motivation to learn Chinese language to weaken. Therefore motivation not only depends on the students themselves,family,teachers' personality, teachers' teaching methods and the activities inside and outside the classroom but also the learning environment, which will have an impact on the students' motivation to learn. It can be seen that though the students'motivation to learn Chinese is not strong and the factors of the weakening motivation to learn Chinese language are prominent, the students become less interested hence easily give up continuing to learn Chinese language.In order to make students learn Chinese effectively and even promote the improvement of Chinese teaching level and reduce the weakening motivation of Chinese language learning,the author brings forth suggestions for improvement on the part of students, parents, teachers and schools.