A Study On The Demotivation Of Non-English Major EFL Learners For Distance English Education

The advent of the information age has provided a new carrier and paradigm for education.In 2020,under the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic,online education flourished at a high speed and was used in schools at all levels and on a large scale.The problem of demotivation emerges during the teaching process,which deserves the attention of scholars.The available literature on demotivation in English learning has focused more on offline classroom teaching,with few studies on students’ demotivation in the online teaching process.This dissertation focuses on the following research questions with college students participating in online English education: First,did non-English major EFL learners experienced demotivation in distance English education? If so,what were the salient factors that caused the demotivation?Second,had motivational regulation strategies were used by non-English major EFL learners for curbing the demotivation in distance English Education? Whether the motivational adjustment strategies students adopt are related to factors such as students’ gender,grade level,and grades?To investigate the above questions,180 sophomore and junior non-English majors of a university in Tianjin participated in the study,because they were involved in the online English education organized by the university for one semester.A questionnaire was used to survey these 180 students for the study.The questionnaire used was based on Sakai（2009）,Flout（2009）,and Li（2009）.To make the questionnaire more practical,the author worked with the teacher who was engaged in teaching English online and has extensive teaching experience to adjust the questionnaire options.Subsequently,the questionnaire was distributed to the subjects in the form of an electronic questionnaire.After the questionnaire was distributed,four subjects who participated in the questionnaire were invited to be interviewed to collect qualitative data to triangulate the quantitative data results.Based on the findings,the study came to the following conclusions: Firstly,during distance English education,more than half of the non-English majors were affected by demotivation in English learning.There are five factors that lead to the demotivation of the non-English major college students: Teachers and Teaching,Teaching Facilities,Teaching Content,Learning Environment,and Learning Interest.Among them,the Learning Environment factor has the greatest impact on students’ learning motivation.The study showed that students’ demotivation to learn English was related to whether they passed the College English Test Band 4 or not.But learners’ demotivation in distance English education was not related to their gender,grade,or whether they passed the College English Test Band 6.Secondly,the results of the study showed that most of the students applied English learning motivation adjustment strategies to adjust their motivation when they were demotivated.The most three frequently used English learning motivation regulation strategies among demotivated students were: Task Value Enhancement strategy,Interest Enhancement strategy,and Will Control strategy.During distance English education,there were significant differences in the use of Will Control strategy among students in different grades,with second-year university students using Will Control strategy more than third-year university students;whether the subjects passed the College English Test Band 6 or not significantly affected their choice of Self-reward strategy and Self-efficacy Enhancement strategy.The subjects who passed the College English Test Band 6 used Self-reward strategy and Self-efficacy Enhancement strategy more frequently to improve their motivation to learn English.At the end of the dissertation,the author concludes with several recommendations for online instructors,students,and developers of online educational applications to avoid students affected by demotivation in future English learning.