Action Research On Stimulating Rural Senior High School Students' English Learning Motivation

It has been acknowledged by psychologists and linguists both at home and abroad that motivation is one of the most significant factors that can influence foreign language learning.However,based on the author's previous English teaching experience,observations and interviews with the students in two rural senior high schools,the author finds that most students are compelled to learn English to get admitted into good universities or colleges and teachers are engaged in imparting vocabulary and grammatical rules to students,paying little attention to stimulating their learning passion and motivation,which tends to lead to the fact that English learning is painful and boring for these students and therefore students' learning efficiency is low.After doing some research into some relevant theories about motivation,the author wants to make some changes in rural students' English learning situation by doing an action research which lasts about 19 weeks,hoping to stimulate students' English learning motivation.The action research is divided into three stages: pre-action,while-action and post-action.In the first stage,some preparations are made to pave the way for the next stage,like studying relevant theories and other researches,making surveys,analyzing questionnaires,etc.While-action is the key part,in which some actions are designed according to their specific problems.They are: actions to improve their intrinsic and integrative motivation;actions to improve their self-efficacy;actions to build up harmonious relationship between teachers and students to facilitate communication.In the post-action,quantitative and qualitative data are collected and analyzed,both of which suggest that the action research can achieve some of its desired effects.From the action research,the author draws the following conclusions: 1)Students' English learning motivation can be enhanced in rural high schools,and correspondingly their English achievement improves as well;2)Giving instructions of English learning strategies to students proves to be beneficial to their learning efficiency and effectiveness.;3)Time and effort spent on improving their spoken English are absolutely worthwhile.At the end of the thesis,the author makes two teaching reflections.The first one is that more care and encouragement need to be given to those poorly-stimulated students.The second one is that chances for them to display themselves are badly needed to stimulate their English learning motivationThe author hopes that the research will be useful to other researchers who are dedicated to improving students' English learning passion and motivation and as spoken English is becoming increasingly important,more relevant researches can be carried out in this aspect in rural senior high schools,.