A Research On Students’ English Listening And Speaking Motivation And Proficiency Based On ARCS Model In Junior High Schools

English listening and speaking(ELS)teaching is crucial to junior high school English teaching,and ELS classes can systematically and effectively improve students’ listening and speaking proficiency,thereby improving their overall English proficiency.However,in actual ELS instruction,the class activities and teaching methods are often monotonous and dull,resulting in students lacking sufficient motivation for learning.ARCS motivation model provides a systematic motivation activation method,which divides learning motivation into four categories: attention,relevance,confidence,and satisfaction.Corresponding motivation strategies and design processes can be utilized to design a course to stimulate students’ learning motivation.In order to stimulate students’ motivation for ELS,improve their ELS proficiency,and explore effective ways to integrate the ARCS model into the classroom,this study researched the following questions:(1)What effects does ARCS-based ELS instruction have on students’ ELS motivation?(2)What effects does ARCS-based ELS instruction have on students’ ELS proficiency?(3)What is the correlation between students’ changed ELS motivation and proficiency after ARCS-based instruction?To answer the questions above,72 students were selected from a junior high school in Qingdao as the research subjects in the study,a teaching plan was designed to address the motivation issues faced by the students,and data were collected by questionnaires,tests,and interviews.In order to reduce the influence of students’ natural progress on the results,the experiment lasted for 4 weeks,totaling 8 classes.The experimental process is as follows: Before designing the instruction,the researcher first diagnosed students’ initial ELS learning motivation and proficiency through questionnaires,listening and speaking tests and a researcher-to-teacher interview;Then,motivation strategies were chosen and the course was designed according to the existing teaching schedule and students’ motivation problems;During the 4-week instruction implementation,the strategies were constantly adjusted and the teaching methods were improved based on classroom observations and smallscale interviews;At the end of the course,the students’ ELS motivation and proficiency after experiencing ARCS-based instruction were diagnosed through questionnaires,listening and speaking tests and researcher-to-student interviews.Paired sample t-tests and regression analysis were conducted on the questionnaire and test results by SPSS 26.0.0.The research results indicated that,firstly,after experiencing ELS classes based on the ARCS motivation model,students’ learning motivation had significantly improved in all four dimensions: attention,relevance,confidence,and satisfaction.Among them,the improvement in satisfaction and attention was more significant than other dimensions.Secondly,students’ ELS proficiency had also been significantly improved,especially their English speaking proficiency.Their confidence and accuracy of expression were obviously better than before the experiment.Finally,the ELS motivation changed by ARCS model positively and significantly predicted the improvement of students’ ELS proficiency.That is,the more learning motivation was improved,the more ELS proficiency was developed.This research integrated the ARCS motivation model with ELS instruction in junior high schools,innovatively employed quantitative speaking evaluation metrics,explored its practical mode and teaching strategies,and provided new ideas for ELS instruction in China.