An Empirical Study On Correlation Between L2 Motivational Self System And Senior High School Students’ English Achievements

Motivation is a significant factor affecting the success of L2 learning.It is not only the source power for L2 learning,but also a continuous driving force in the tedious L2 learning process,which acts as an important emotional factor in sustaining learners’ passion for L2.The past five decades have seen a flourishing period of researches on L2 motivation in SLA studies.Since the early 21 st century,a brand new motivational theory has prevailed the field of second language motivation.Proposed by Dornyei in 2005,the L2 Motivational Self-system(L2MSS)are composed of ideal L2 self,ought-to L2 self and L2 learning experience.Many researchers at home and abroad have found that there is a close relationship between L2 MSS and learner’language achievement.However,most previous studies in this regard focused on college students,and a few studies pay attention to senior high school students.This study aims to explore the relationship between senior high school students’ L2 MSS and their English learning achievements.The author attempts to figure out the following questions in the present study.(1)What is the current situation of the senior high school students’ L2MSS? Are there any differences between male and female students in terms of their L2MSS? If yes,to what degree?(2)What is the correlation between the students’ L2 MSS and their English learning achievements?(3)Among the three components of Dornyei’s L2 MSS,which one best predicts students’ English learning achievements?The participants are 114 students from two classes of senior one in Ji’an.According to the results of the questionnaire and English achievement of the participants,semi-structured interviews will be conducted among some of the participants.All the measured data will be analyzed by SPSS 21.0,and the descriptive statistics,independent samples T-test,Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis are used to answer the three research questions.Based on the results of the data,the major findings are as follows:Firstly,the scores of students’ overall L2 MSS are relatively high,demonstrating that senior high school students’ L2 MSS are commonly at a medium high level.As for its three components,the participants’ scores on ideal L2 self,L2 learning experience and ought-to L2 self factor are all moderately high,meanwhile the scores on ought-to L2 self are slightly lower than the other two factors.This indicates that the majority of students have a relatively high-level motivation to learn English,especially those who hold a positive ideal L2 self and successful L2 learning experiences.Besides,no significant difference exists between male and female students on their L2 MSS and the three sub-dimensions.The mean value of girls’ L2 MSS and its three dimensions are all higher than that of boys’,but the differences are generally small.This suggests that male and female students in senior high school share similar motivations of learning English regardless of their gender difference.Secondly,there exists a significant and positive linear relationship between students’ overall L2 MSS level and their English achievements.To be more specific,students’ English learning achievements are significantly and positively correlated both with their ideal L2 self and L2 learning experience as well.This underlines that not only the overall L2 MSS but also its two sub-dimensions--ideal L2 self and L2 learning experience play a significant role in facilitating students’ English learning.Thirdly,according to the multiple regression analysis,only L2 learning experience with the highest significant correlation coefficient enters into the regression model,manifesting that L2 learning experience is the significant predictive variable for students’ English achievements.