A Comparative Study On English Learning Motivation Between High-achieved And Low-achieved Students In A Secondary Vocational School

Learning motivation has been a hot academic topic both abroad and in China since the 1980 s.Numerous researches have been done to study motivation from various aspects.In recent years,with the development of vocational education,many researches began to shift their attention to English learning motivation of Secondary Vocational School students.However,most of these researches take the Secondary Vocational students as a whole,claiming that all the Secondary Vocational students are English underachievers.The individual differences on English learning motivation have been neglected.This research compared 97 high-achieved students and 94 low-achieved students and interviewed 3 related teachers to reveal English learning motivation of both high-achieved and low-achieved students,make clear their differences and explore the influential factors to these differences.Corresponding suggestions are proposed to inspire low-achieved students.The major findings of this research are: 1)Intrinsic motivation plays a main role in high-achieved students’ English learning.Among the 6 dimensions of extrinsic motivation,personal development is relatively an important motivation in both high-achieved and low-achieved students’ English learning.2)High-achieved students’ intrinsic motivation is higher than their extrinsic motivation,while low-achieved students’ extrinsic motivation is higher than their intrinsic motivation.In general,high-achieved students are more intense than low-achieved students in English learning motivation,and there is a significant difference between the two parties in intrinsic motivation,but there is no significant difference between them in extrinsic motivation.3)Influential factors to the differences can be found in all of the four levels---language level,learners level,learning situation level and goal level.Based on the findings of the research,the author also explored strategies of inspiring low-achieved students’ English learning motivation,hoping to provide some implications for English teaching to improve low-achieved students’ English learning and decrease the gap between high-achieved and low-achieved students.