YAN GONG -

A SURVEY ON MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LEARNING OF SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOL STUDENTS IN CHINA : ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC/ACADEMIC PURPOSES

The present study aims to investigate motivation of vocational school students learning English, in order to identify the main factors that affect these students. Questionnaires were sent to 85 employees graduated from secondary vocational school, 284 secondary vocational school students with 12 employers. After analyses of the results from sections of the study, major findings of the study were: 1.Secondary vocational school students were not highly motivated in learning English. They were more passive in learning and rarely engaged in learning activities inside and outside the classroom. 2.The other main factors that influenced motivation of these students were: • Improper attributions of causes for success and failure within study, • Mechanical types of classroom activities. Based on the findings of the study, some suggestions were made for EFL teaching in secondary vocational school in the hope that secondary vocational school teachers would draw some inspiration from the present study.

I am from China, and pursuing a Ph.D degree in English language teaching at the moment. Teaching is regarded as my life career. Besides, I favor in exploring effective teaching methods to motivate my students in English language learning.