青岛理工大学琴岛学院毕业论文题目The effects of motivation on English learning学生姓名:_________王佩_________________指导教师:_________徐莹_________________外语系商务英语专业081班2011年5月30日毕业论文任务书摘要在人们日常生活中,无论做什么事,都会有动机这个因素存在。
因为有了动机,人们才会有意识地为了达到某种目的而去做一些事情。
正如当今社会,越来越多的人投入到学习英语当中,可促使英语学习浪潮的动机是什么呢?它又是如何影响英语学习呢?本文主要分析了动机对英语学习的影响以及如何通过动机来提高英语学习效率。
本文由四部分组成:第一部分简要说明动机的定义及其分类;第二部分详细阐述动机与英语学习的关系;第三部分讲述动机对英语学习的影响;第四部分是本文的结论:动机在英语学习中起着重要作用,它促进并且提高英语学习的效率。
关键字:动机,英语学习,关系,影响,重要性ABSTRACTIn human’s daily life, no matter what one does, the motivation always exists. It is the motivation that makes one realize what he does for and push him to do everything he want. Just like human’s society, more and more people have begun to learn English, but what is the motivation and how can it influence the English learning? This paper is devoted to the study of the effects of motivation on English learning and how to improve the efficiency of English learning by motivation. It starts with a brief introduction of the definition of the motivation and its classification. The second part of this paper focuses on the relation between motivation and English learning. And the last part stresses the effects of the motivation on English learning. This paper ends with the conclusion that the motivation plays an important role in English Learning; it stirs up the activation of learning and improves the efficiency.KEY WORDS: motivation, English learning, relation, effects, importanceContentsIntroduction (9)Chapter One The Definition of Motivation and Its Classification (10)1.1The definition of motivation (10)1.2The classification of motivation (10)1.2.1The internal motivation (10)1.2.2The external motivation (11)Chapter Two The Relation between Motivation and Learning (13)2.1 The relation between motivation and learning (13)2.2 The relation between motivation and English learning (13)2.3 Reasons for studying the relation (14)Chapter Three The Effects of Motivation on English Learning (15)3.1 How to inspire the motivation of English learning (15)3.2 How to improve the efficiency of English learning by motivation (15)Conclusion (17)Acknowledgements (18)Bibliography (19)IntroductionMotivation plays an important role in human’s daily life, because no matter what one does has its purpose, which can be the so-called reason. Those purposes lead people to do what they want to and give them the direction. When people have their motivation, they will try their best to do things so that they can succeed. But where is the motivation? How to make full use of it, and how much influence can it make? All above, this is what people study for. Besides, with the development of globalization, most people have begun to learn English. Mainly, this paper tries to illustrate the relation between motivation and English learning, analyze the effects of motivation on English learning, and also realize how it can stir up the activation of learning and improve the efficiency, and point out ways to help people who want to learn English.In recent years, college English teaching in China has made great achievements. However, the result of the college English teaching is not satisfactory. Chinese college students’ ability to use English is still poor.What has caused this unsatisfactory situation? What can teachers do to improve their level? How to teach college English effectively? These questions always haunt college English teachers in China. Undoubtedly, many factors result in the inefficiency of college English learning. Most English teachers will agree that motivation of the students is one of the most important factors influencing their success in learning English. They may have to go along with the students’motivation or at least be sufficiently aware of the students’motivation so that problems can be smoothed over.Chapter One The Definition of Motivation and Its Classification1.1The definition of motivationFrom the definitions, it can be found in the area of linguistics.The usual meaning of motivation for the teacher is probably the interest that something generates in the students.Gardner defined motivation as the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language (1985:10).As Jones et.al (1987) defined it, motivation, or the will to learn, can be considered a component of meta-cognition as it plays a self-regulatory role in learning.In an attempt to characterize a non-theoretical view of motivation, Skehan (1989) puts forward four hypotheses:1) The Intrinsic Hypothesis: motivation derives from an inherent interest in thelearning tasks the learner is asked to perform.2) The Regulative Hypothesis: learners who do well will persevere; those who donot do well will be discouraged and try less hard.3) The Internal Cause Hypothesis: the learner brings to the learning situation acertain quantity of motivation as a given.4) The Carrot and Stick Hypothesis: external influences and incentives will affectthe strength of the learner’s motivation.1.2The classification of motivationMotivation, in educational psychologists’view, is divided into some types: the integrative and instrumental motivation; the internal and external motivation; the state and trait motivation. This paper mainly focuses on the internal motivation and the external motivation.1.2.1The internal motivationThe internal motivation refers to persons voluntary for activities of a kind ofcognition. The internally motivated learners learn a second or foreign language for no apparent reward except the learning activity itself. They seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and not because they lead to an external reward. Namely, intrinsically consequences, is the feeling of competence and self-determination.The internal motivation includes three kinds: the first kind is for activity itself interest, the second kind is to perform the activities of pleasure, and the third is a mission to the person’s ability to challenge. For example, some student like reading, resolving questions in math. These activities can make them happy, that is to say, the motivation derives from them, not others.1.2.2The external motivationThe external motivation refers to persons involuntary for activities of a kind of cognition. The externally motivated learners perform in order to obtain some reward, not because they are really interested in the activity for their own sake. Externally motivated behaviors are carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self. It always has contacted with the external factors. For example, most students study hard so that they can get high score. In fact, some of them may be not interested in learning. They do that because they want to make their parents or teachers happy. Besides, they are eager to be admitted by famous college or university.As to the question “which type of motivation is superior in contributing to successful learning?”many researchers choose the internal motivation. Douglas Brown is an important advocator for internal motivation. He suggested too much external motivation such as school curriculum, authority demand, teachers’feedback and parental expectation. These external factors might kill learners’interest to learn for the sake of learning. The reason why internal motivation wins more support is that the internally motivated behaviors result from personal needs, reflecting learners’personal choice, decision, free will, interest and individual evaluation of self and task. According to Mallow’s hierarchy of needs, once the basic needs are met, people will ultimately be motivated to achieve “self-actualization”whether the external rewards are presented or not. Since internal motivation plays an important role in languageteaching and learning, the main task of language teachers is to stimulate students’internal motivation to learn. Meanwhile, they can use external motivation to marshal the productive forces of internal motivation. Regardless of the cultural beliefs and attitudes of learners and teachers, internal and external factors can be quite easily identified.Chapter Two The Relation between Motivation and Learning2.1 The relation between motivation and learningAs people know, no matter what they do, they always have purposes, which generate motivation.Learning motivation is to show individual intentions desire, psychological demand or attempting to reach the goal of a kind of motivation, inner power. Only by greatly stimulating the students’study motivations can the enthusiasm of students’study and the quality of learning be improved.Learning motivation can be divided into two kinds. The fist kind is the internal motivation, and the second is external motivation. In chapter one, the paper has showed their definition and classification. Some students like learning and the view of learning can bring them happiness. This is the internal learning motivation. Others study hard in order to get reward or make their parents happy. This is the external learning motivation.Thus it can be seen both internal and external learning motivation play important role in study. Therefore, the teaching process is the first step to arouse motivation, inspire the students’interests in study, and guide students’purpose of study. Experienced teachers often use the students’competitiveness, rivalry, seek approval, and motives, to create the interest in learning, improve the efficiency, and gradually lead them to set up the correct study purpose.2.2 The relation between motivation and English learningEnglish learning is one of parts of study, so it also needs motivation. English learning motivation refers to learners’English power factor, which is to motivate English learning objective as the internal driving force.People who have high motivation do well in English learning and have better achievements, while, those who have low motivation get little achievements.Students’English learning motivation includes internal and external motivation, but no matter which motivation they have, only if they have, will they getachievements.Nowadays, more and more people begin to learn English. There are many reasons: First, they are interested in English. This is the internal motivation. Second, they want to work in foreign countries. Third, with the development of society, people need to communicate with foreigners. The last two reasons are external motivation.2.3 Reasons for studying the relationMotivation plays an important role in study. In recent years, economic globalization calls for frequent communication of different nations. More than 70% of the publications in the world are printed in English. English has become the basic requirement of communication. But Chinese students are still poor in English.What has caused this unsatisfactory situation? What can teachers do to improve their level? How to teach college English effectively? These questions always haunt college English teachers in China. Undoubtedly, many factors result in the inefficiency of college English learning. Most English teachers will agree that motivation of the students is one of the most important factors influencing their success in learning English. They may have to go along with the students’motivation or at least be sufficiently aware of the students’motivation so that problems can be smoothed over. It is necessary for people to study this relation.Chapter Three The Effects of Motivation on English Learning3.1 How to inspire the motivation of English learningFirst, help students build their confidence, and give correct evaluation, appropriate praise and encouragement. It is important make students realize that as long as they can study hard, the chance of success for everyone is equal. And help them to face to the difficulties.Second, set up good relationship between teachers and students and use the feedback information.Third, hold an English competition and give proper award to students. Teachers must pay attention to the methods of the competition.Fourth,guide students to analyze the failed reasons correctly. If students attribute the action of others to the tendency of internal factors rather than external factors, they will lose their confidence. On the contrary, if they attribute the failure to external factors, they will be hard for them to improve. Therefore, it is important to find the correct reason. B. Weiner said, the internal, stable, controlled factors can be the correct reason.3.2 How to improve the efficiency of English learning by motivationFirst, it is necessary to use methods to improve students’interest in learning English. Teachers can show the English national literature, background introduction to students. Thus students will be interested and acquire the knowledge better.Second, it is good to make a proper evaluation for students’ performance.Third, it is useful to decorate reasonable study tasks.Fourth, it is important to make timely feedback. Learning is a long and hard thing. If there is no timely feedback, many students will find no progress in their study, even lose interest in English learning. Through feedback, students can not only know their progress in study but also realize their insufficiency, and it also can help students enjoy the pleasure of study.Besides, it is vital to make full use of the motivation. The internal motivation isbetter than the external motivation. However, one cannot ignore the external motivation. Both of them have much influence on English learning.ConclusionThe motivation plays an important role in English Learning; it stirs up the activation of Learning and improves the efficiency.The whole paper has divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, it starts with the definition of motivation and its classification, in order to show “what is the motivation?” and its necessity. Its classification is based on the internal and external motivation. Meanwhile, it proves that internal motivation is better than external motivation. In the second chapter, it focuses on the relation between learning and motivation, mainly, the relation between English learning and motivation. At the same time, this paper gives some examples to prove the importance of motivation. In the last chapter, it has two questions to solve. The first is how to inspire the motivation of English learning. The second is how to improve the efficiency of English learning by motivation. The paper makes people find the methods to inspire motivation and make full use of them so that people can improve their English learning as soon as possible. It also emphasizes on the best way to inspire English learning motivation is teachers’teaching function.In conclusion, motivation has much influence on human’s daily life, especially, on English learning. If one wants to learn English well, he or she must inspire their learning motivation. Learning motivation is to show individual intentions desire, psychological demand or attempting to reach the goal of a kind of motivation, inner power. Only by greatly stimulating ones’study motivations can the enthusiasm of ones’study and the quality of learning be improved. No matter when people cannot ignore the importance of motivation.AcknowledgementsI am greatly indebted to all my teachers from the bottom of my heart. During the three years of study in the university, they have given me great assistance. I have learnt not only the academic knowledge but the true meanings of life as well.My thanks go to my supervisor Xuying, who gave me a lot of suggestions, and very willingly revised my paper again and again.Thanks for all my friends for collecting information and paper materials for me.Thanks for my deeply loved parents, without whose love and encouragement, I could not have finished my study in the university. Three years’ education in Qingdao Technological University Qindao College is my precious wealth.BibliographyGardner, Howard. Social Psychology and Second Language Learning. London:Edward Arnold, 1985.Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman, 1991. Skehan, Peter. Individual Differences in Second Language Laming. New York: Association Press, 1998.高一虹、赵媛、程英、周燕,中国大学本科生英语学习动机类型,《现代外语》第1期,2003。