An Action Research On English Learning Motivation Of Junior High School Students With Learning Difficulties Among Children Of Migrant Workers In Cities

The pressure brought by high school acceptance rates often makes English teachers in junior high schools in China spend more time and energy in helping the top students and the medium students.To some extent,this often leaves the needs of poor English learners among children of migrant workers neglected and their problems in language learning unsolved.Researches have shown that goal,achievement motivation,self efficacy and attribution style all play significant roles in affecting learning motivation.However,there haven’t been enough action researches based on that fact,with an attempt to facilitate the learning of the students with English learning difficulties.Therefore,the purpose of this paper is to find out the problems in the above four aspects among the children of migrant workers who have difficulties in learning English,intervention measures of English teachers and parents of students with learning difficulties,and carry out a 11-week scheme on two students with learning difficulties to help them improve the achievement.The questionnaire in the paper was based on the one on the study of middle school students’ English learning motivation made by Qiu Weiqin(2005)and Feng bin(2008).Questions in it were designed from four dimensions,namely goal,achievement motivation,self efficacy and attribution style.Ricketter scale was applied in terms of options,and five levels of options were set,namely "strongly agree","agree","uncertain","disagree" and "strongly disagree".Students with learning difficulties in X middle school were required to choose the the statements that best suit their case.The interview after presented main interventions from teachers and parents to improve the exam grades of students with learning difficulties.It can provide evidence for the effectiveness of intervention.This action research is divided into three stages.The first stage will last 3 weeks while the second and the third stage will each last 4 weeks.During the first stage,goals will be set and students’learning interest and motivation will be stimulated.During the second stage,the family-school connection will be reinforced and students will be helped to acquire a better sense of self-efficacy.In the last stage,students’ learning strategies will be optimized and they will also be helped to learn to attribute their success and failure to different causes properly.The main conclusions of this study are as follow:Firstly,there are some problems existing in the learning motivation of poor English learners among children of migrant workers,such as intangible goals,,low self-efficacy,negative achievement attribution style and achievement motivation.Secondly,in order to transforming students with English learning difficulties.intervention measures mainly adopted by the English teachers are setting clear goals,applying stratified teaching methods,establishing good relationships between teachers and students,keeping in close contact with the parents.Meanwhile,parents of poor students mainly intervene by setting up a reward and punishment mechanism,conducting selective checks on homework,frequently emphasizing the importance of English learning,offering children after-class tutoring.Thirdly,after adjusting and intervening the poor junior middle school English students in the aspects of interest,objective setting and self-efficacy and attribution style,the periodic transformation of these poor students can be realized.Fourthly,to transform the students with learning difficulties is a long-term and hard task.Teachers and parents should see students with learning difficulties in the light of their development and truly care for the poor English learners among children of migrant workers...