浅析初中英语学习中学习动机的培养

论文总字数：31372字

摘 要

动机是个体发动和维持行动的一种心理状态，是激励人去行动的内部动因和力量，是。人们普遍认为在英语学习过程中，学生的动机是成功的关键所在。动机较强的学生通常在学习中比较活跃，而动机不足的学生更容易引起课堂骚乱。由于初中学习性质的改变，学生学习内容和方法的改变，初中生的学习动机的自觉性比小学生有了更大的发展。他们能够更为主动自觉地进行教材钻研和独立思考，而不是像小学生那样，很容易为学习活动中的一些外部因素所左右。当然，初中生学习动机的自觉性还是不稳定的、容易动摇和变化的，这就要求教师采取措施来提高学生学习的自觉性。对英语教师来说，只有了解学生的学习动机才能采取相应的策略来激发学生的学习动机，最终提高课堂效果。

关键词：动机；中学生英语学习；培养学习动机的方法

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………2

2.1 The Definition of Motivation…………………………………………...2

2.2 Theoretical Bases……………………………………………………....2

2.3 Empirical Studies…………………..………………………………...3

1. Motivation…………………………………… …………………………...4

3.1 Traits……………………………………………………………………….4

3.2 Classification …………………………………………………………........5

3.3 Influencing Factors……..………………………………………………...7

1. The Importance of Motivation in Junior High School English Learning…....9

5. Ways to Cultivate the Motivation…...………………………………..10

5.1 Helping Students Set up Proper Goals……………………………………10

5.2 Using the Feedback of the Learning Achievements…..………………....10

5.3 Creating a Supportive Learning Atmosphere…………………………….11

5.4 Giving Students Proper Praise……………..………………………………11

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..12

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...13

1. Introduction

What is English learning and why should the students learn English? We can see the current situation of the English learning in junior high schools from the answers given by students in those schools. Most students give the answer that they learn English just in order to get a higher score when they are admitted to senior high school. Some students hold the idea that learning English can be useful when they graduate and come into the society; it is a useful tool for them to communicate with people from all over the world. Others think that they learn English just to cater to the expectations of the teachers and their parents. 50 percent of students say that they will try their best to finish their homework while about 30 percent of the students hope that they can spend the least time in finishing English homework. What’s worse, some students often copy other’s homework, they regard homework just as a mission which must be done. What worries us most is that some students who are incomplete in their characteristics forming even think that they learn English for their parents and teachers. Besides, there are some students who do not used to the teaching methods of the teachers or they just do not like the way the teachers teach. From the above, we can conclude that most students who do not wholly understand the importance of learning English only see the practical functions of English learning.

Different students have different achieving goals, processes and results in English learning. These differences are resulted from different main bodies of English learning. Among various factors influencing the English learners, there is an important kind of factors——that is the emotional one which includes motivation, attitude, interests, personality and so on. The motivated students are usually more active in learning while those unmotivated students are easily tended to cause disturbances in class.

Students’ motivations must be paid attention to and teachers should learn to stimulate students’ motivations. Motivation and its classification, some factors which influence the motivation, the importance of motivation in Junior High School English learning and the ways to cultivate students’ motivation are mainly talked about in this paper.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definition of Motivation

R,C,Garnder(1996) defines motivation as a combination of effort and desire to obtain the goal of learning the target language and favorable attitudes towards learning the language.

Ellis,R(1987) who is a famous professor of at the college of education of Temple University defines motivation as a state of cognitive and emotional arousal leading to a intentional decision to behave and giving rise to a period of sustained intellectual and physical effort.

Dornyei(1994) defines motivation as a process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises, initiates an action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby terminate action or until the planned outcome has been reached.

The paper argues that motivation is both an internal and external factor that stimulates people’s desire and energy to be continuously interested in and committed to future career or to make an effort to achieve the goal.

2.2 Theoretical Bases

Motivation is an inner power and a mentality which inspire people to keep studying as well as the force to guide and maintain goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation forces us to take certain actions and to grab something to eat to reduce the feeling of hunger or to be admitted to college to earn a degree. The nature of power lying under motivation can be biological, social, cognitive or emotional. Different theories have been put forward by different researchers to claim motivation but each theory tends to be rather restricted in scope.

The reason why people are motivated to perform in certain ways is that they are arranged to do so according to Instinct Theory of Motivation. The most typical and best-known example is the seasonal migration in the animal world. These animals migrate because of their inborn patterns of behavior rather than they learn to migrate. Experts created a list of human instincts including such things as shame, wrath, scare, terror, shyness, fixation, modesty and love. In this theory, the main problem is that it just described the behavior instead of explaining it. By the 1920s, the impact of genetics on human behaviors was still investigated by contemporary evolutionary psychologists even though instinct theories may be pushed aside backing up some other motivational theories.

Incentive Theory of Motivation proves that about 90 percent of people are motivated to do things in anticipation to external rewards. For example, you might be motivated to go to work every day if your boss promised you some monetary reward. It is behavioral learning concepts such as reinforcement and association that are underlined in incentive theory of motivation.

From the Arousal Theory of Motivation we can make the conclusion that people act certain behaviors to either decrease or increase levels of arousal. For example, a person might see an exciting film or go wandering when arousal levels get too low while on the other hand, he or she would probably look for ways to relax such as listening to music and reading comic books or even do some meditation when arousal levels get too high. We are motivated to maintain a relatively superior level of arousal although the level is variously based on from the individual to the situation according to arousal theory of motivation.

People are motivated to take certain actions to reduce the internal tension resulted from unmet needs according to Drive Theory of Motivation. For example, you would be like to drink a glass of juice in order to reduce the internal state of thirst. This theory is useful in explaining behaviors with a strong biological component like sleepiness or hunger. Behaviors are not always motivated wholly by physiological needs is the main problem with this theory. For example, even when people are not really sleepy they sometimes fall asleep.

Humanistic Theory of Motivation is in accordance with the view that human beings also have blazing cognitive reasons to behave multifarious actions and the idea that hierarchy of needs presents different kinds of motivations at different levels. People are motivated to meet basic needs for food and shelter at the beginning and then for safety, love as well as self-esteem in the end. The original motivator turns into the need for self-actualization and the desire to tap individual’s potential once the elementary-level needs have been met.

2.3 Empirical Studies

This paper mainly examines two empirical papers dealing with the similar topics on motivation and both the two previous studies make contributions to second language acquisition research.

Firstly, unsuccessful language learners were addressed as the subjects for Nikolov’s empirical study (2001). The comments of the development from those unsuccessful young Hungarian adult language learners who started to study a foreign language between the ages of 6 and 9 and their own language learning experiences are examined in the study. 94 low-achieving adults aged 19-27 who were involved in this research. The study aimed to explore the reasons why young adults had failed to achieve even a basic level of foreign language competence and what has been found in the research includes teaching materials, teachers’ images and learners’ motivation from classroom activities. What’s more, a large number of learners refer to intrinsic motivation for liking a particular language whereas only 3 respondents address instrumental motivation as an impetus. Increasingly, questions on what makes language learners successful lead to the various answers reflecting learner features.

Secondly, the influences of language teachers’ motivation on learners’ motivation are also discussed in Kassabgy, Boraie and Schmidt’s empirical study (2001). In spite of most studies about learners’ motivation on language acquisition, there is little research related to teachers’ motivation in the teaching process. Therefore, the study includes 107 experienced teachers composing 70 from Egypt and 37 from Hawaii, and addressed the influence of teachers’ motivation with the help of a questionnaire. The study showed that there was a correlation between teachers’ motivation and learners’ motivation. What was not made clear yet is how they intersect with each other.

To sum up, these two experiments handle two different specific areas of motivation respectively in the second language acquisition realm. A comprehensive approach to digesting some of the complexities in second language acquisition with either a theoretical or an empirical viewpoint on second language acquisition motivation research can be better taken into consideration.

3. Motivation

3.1 Traits

First，motivation is a psychological phenomenon, that is motivation is an internal feeling which generates within an individual. Motivator factors are always unconscious but they are to be aroused by managerial actions.

Second, motivation is based on needs-Needs that may be consciously or unconsciously felt. Needs may be fundamental such as needs for food, clothes, shelter etc or ego-satisfied needs such as self- development and self actualization. These needs vary with individuals and with the same individual over time.

Third, goals are motivators-Motivation causes goal-directed behavior. Feeling of needs by the person causes him to behave in such a way that the tries to satisfy himself. It is essential for the managers to know employees’ goals to push them to work because people work to achieve the goals as goals and motivations cannot be separated. They would be no longer interested in work as soon as the goals are achieved.

Fourth, motivation is different from satisfaction which means motivation implies a drive toward an outcome while satisfaction involves outcomes already experienced. Satisfaction is the contentment experienced when desires are satisfied.

Fifth, motivation sometimes can be both positive and negative-Positive motivation is also known as Carrot Approach and includes use of additional pays, incentives and praise possibility of becoming a permanent employee etc. Negative motivation is also called Stick Approach which implies punishment such as informing students’ behaviors to their parents.

Sixth, motivation is a continuous process which never ends-Wants are innumerable and cannot be satisfied at one time. One’s basic need loses power as a motivator if it is wholly satisfied for a given individual. But other needs keep emerging. The process of satisfaction of needs never ends and the process of motivation itself also never ends.

Seventh, motivation is related to person in totality other than in part. A person"s basic needs are inter-related because each individual is an integrated organized whole.

3.2 Classification

Motivation can be classified into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation which is totally opposite from the view of cognitive psychology.

3.2.1 Intrinsic Motivation

Edward Deci(1985) considers the intrinsic motivation as activities themselves with no conspicuous reward. It seems that people join in the activity for their own sake other than bringing about some intrinsic rewards. Leading to certain internally rewarding results like feelings of confidence and self-determination is what intrinsically motivated actions aimed at which means the impetus to take part in the learning activity for its own sake such as for immigration or for the future career.

3.2.2 Extrinsic Motivation

Brown H.D. (2001) considers extrinsic motivation as performances put into practice catering to monetary rewards such as money and even some kind of positive feedbacks beyond oneself from the outside or in order to avoid punishment. A learner who is not really taking an interest in the activity for his or her own sake when he or she cares only about what he or she will actually gain learns with extrinsic motivation. For example, my parents promised me that if I get a high score in the test they would buy me an iphone. In order to get the iphone, I would try my best to pass the exam. Some people hold the idea that intrinsic motivation is obviously superior to extrinsic motivation. People motivate to achieve the ultimate goal of fulfillment and self-esteem if their basic physical needs are met.

However, integrative and instrumental motivations are the best-known and the most historically significant classification in the second language acquisition based on Gardner’s and Dornyei’s model.

3.2.3 Integrative Motivation

Almost 99 percent of those successful students in the process of learning a target language are students who speak the language, thirst for the culture background and have the wish to have a good command of or even assimilate themselves into the community where target languages are spoken. A pivotal composition in helping the learners to develop some levels of proficiency in the target language is the integrative motivation when a person turns into a citizen in a new community where the target language in its social interactions is spoken. Therefore, integrative motivation plays a critical role in language acquisition. It is related to personal growth and the desire for acculturation.

3.2.4 Instrumental Motivation

The desire to obtain something down-to-earth or concrete from the researches of a target language such as to pass a test or to be admitted to a famous university or to get a better job generally characterizes the instrumental motivation. It is a main feature in the process of target language acquisition where hardly or even no social combination of the learners into a community, or in some instances is even desired.

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