中国英语学习者英语写作动机调查 马 欢 杨鲁新 (外语教学与研究出版社 基础英语教育事业部, 北京 100089;北京外国语大学 中国外语教育研究中心, 北京 100089) 提要:本研究调查了中国北方某综合大学的 57 名非英语专业学生学习英语写作的动机。本研究采用问卷调查和访谈 方式收集数据。内外动机模式调查问卷根据自我决定理论设计。问卷调查结果显示,中国非英语专业大学生有明确 的动机学习英语写作。男女生仅在两项动机类型上存在显著性差异。访谈分析结果显示,学生对学习英语写作的动 机与教师的判断有很大不同。另外,学生对于大学阶段的英语写作学习的需求与教师的教学内容存在矛盾。 主题词:英语写作动机;大学英语;内部动机;外部动机;写作教学 中图分类号:H319 文献标识码:A Motivation is one of the most important factors in the initiation of second language (L2) learning and the maintenance of long and often tedious learning process (Arnold 1999; Dörnyei 1994; Ellis 1994; Gao 2003). Contrasted with the rich literature on motivation in L2 learning in general, less information is available on motivation to learn specific skill in L2 learning. To contribute to this domain, the present study intended to examine the motivation orientations of a group of Chinese EFL learners in their development of English writing competence. Sasaki (2000) argued that the development of L2 writing ability is emotionally driven to some extent. Motivation could be one of “explanatory variables for L2 writing ability” (Sasaki & Hirose 1996: 162). Hayes (1996) indicated that the desired writing outcomes need to activate writers’ internal resources. Likewise, Heng & Abdullah (2004) pointed out the importance of motivation in shaping the actions taken by L2 writers. A few researchers in China (Du 2004; Liu, Zhou & Cao 2003) also argued that the lack of motivation might hinder the development of English writing competence of Chinese EFL learners. Du (2004) found that Chinese EFL learners might not understand the underlying value of learning to write in English. Ji (2005) suggested that the arousing of L2 writers’ motivation may lead to more successful writing. However, these studies did not explore the types of the participants’ writing motivation and examine the motivational orientations that Chinese EFL students had in their process of learning to write in English. The present study investigated the profile of the motives underlying the actions of a group of Chinese EFL learners who learned to write in English. Such information might be helpful in terms of evaluating and perhaps reconstructing the instruction on English writing at the universities in China. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What motivate Chinese non-English major college students to learn to write in English? 2. Are there any gender differences in Chinese non-English major college students’ writing 1 motivation? 3. What are Chinese EFL students and instructors’ attitudes towards learning to write in English in university? 4. What are Chinese EFL students and instructors’ attitudes towards current English writing instruction in university? A self-determination approach to motivation To achieve the research purpose, the present study followed the principles of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation model based on Self-Determination Theory (Arnold 1999; Bian 2003; Dörnyei 1998; Ellis 1994) in designing the investigation instruments and interpreting the data. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) identified three needs for human beings, i.e., the needs for competence, the needs for relatedness, and the needs for autonomy (Ryan & Deci 2000). Ryan and Deci (2000: 71) argued that, when a person attempts to carry out an activity, his motivation for the behavior “can range from amotivation or unwillingness, to passive compliance, to active personal commitment”. In other words, “these different motivations reflect different degrees to which the value and regulation of the requested behavior have been internalized and integrated” (Ryan & Deci 2000: 71). Under this model, motivation consists of amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation. Amotivation refers to the state of lacking of control or an intention to perform an action (Ryan & Deci 2000). Amotivated individual might carry out an activity but he cannot see the value underlying his behavior and he doubts his ability to control the whole process and whether there will be a desired result. Extrinsic motivation refers to the separable outcome which pushes an individual to carry out an activity. In this instance, the level of self-determination is the lowest. Extrinsic motivation includes external regulation, introjected regulation, and identified regulation. The three forms of extrinsic motivation vary in the extent to which their regulation is autonomous. Individual motivated by external regulation might do things in order to obtain rewards given by others or to avoid punishment from others. Introjectied regulation refers to the internal pressure from achieving rewards or avoiding punishments. In this instance, people might carry out an activity because he will feel guilty or shame if he does not do it (Ryan & Deci 2000). The internal pressure will push the individual to take action, that is, introjected regulations are partially internalized. Identification is a more autonomous, or self-determined, form of extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci 2000). An individual, who is motivated by identified regulation, participates in an activity because they see clearly identified advantages of the activity. He can recognize and accept the underlying value of the behavior. Thus the individuals with identified regulation are more autonomous in their actions (Ryan & Deci 2000). Intrinsic motivation refers to the innate satisfactions of doing an activity rather than for some separable outcome. An intrinsically motivated person takes an action just for the fun or challenge. Within the realm of education, three levels of intrinsic motivation have been distinguished. The first is intrinsic motivation to stimulation, which is the purest type of motivation. In this instance, the individual carries out an activity for the simple pleasure of doing it. The individual with this intrinsic motivation is most autonomous and self-determined. The second is intrinsic motivation to 2 accomplishment. This type of motivation occurs when the individual performs an activity for the pleasure of feeling competent. The last is intrinsic motivation to knowledge. In this case, the individual takes actions because of the pleasure of learning a new skill or learning new knowledge. Methods 1. Participants A convenient sample (Brown & Rodgers 2002) of 92 undergraduates from a large comprehensive university in the north of China participated in this study. They were second-year non-English major students. Thirty students participated in the pilot survey study to testify the questionnaire for the main study. Sixty-two students from three programs participated in the main study, and fifty-seven questionnaires were valid. Table 1 shows the demographic information about the 57 participants. The majority of the participants (91.2%) aged between 19 to 21 years old. Male students (61.4%) were more than female students (38.6%). Thirty-two students (56.1%) came from the country, sixteen (28.1%) from the town and 9 (15.8%) from the city. Thirty-four participants (59.6%) started to learn English when they were in junior high school, that is, between 13 to 15 years old. Twenty of them (35.1%) learned English when they were between 9 to 12 years old in primary school. Three participants started to learn English after they were 15 years old. All the student participants had formal instruction of English in school for at least seven years. Generally speaking, they had an intermediate level of English proficiency. The students came from various regions of China and majored in technology. As they all specialized in popular subjects, such as automation, their scores for College Entrance Examination (CEE) were in front rank among the students in that university. At the time of this study, they were in the third semester of their English studies during their undergraduate education (they were required to take English courses for four semesters). Table 1 Demographic information about the participants Age <19 Gender 19-21 >21 male Starting age of Family background female country English learning town city 9-12 13-15 >15 cases 1 52 4 35 22 32 16 9 20 34 3 % 1.8 91.2 7.0 61.4 38.6 56.1 28.1 15.8 35.1 59.6 5.3 The college English course was compulsory to them. They had four classes (four hours) every week. According to students’ regular English writing composition scores, the participants were identified as two groups: “good writers” and “weak writers”. Two students from the group of “good” writers and two from the group of “weak” writers volunteered to be interviewed for further study on their attitudes toward learning to write in English and their perception of current English writing instruction. The two “good writers”, Zhu and Li, were in an English writing course given by an American instructor. They took this course once a week (about two hours). Zhu and Li also took the regular English course given by a Chinese instructor twice a week (about four hours). Table 2 profiles the four students. 3 Table 2 The profiles of the four students Family Starting age of Writing English learning achievement 20 9-12 “good writer” country 20 13-15 “good writer” male country 20 9-12 “weak writer” female country 20 13-15 “weak writer” Student Gender Zhu male town Li male Zhang Wang background Age . The instructors of the two classes also agreed to participate in this study, which I named Wan and Yang. Wan was 25-year-old female and Yang was 27-year-old male. They all had taught English for 5 years in this university. 2. Instruments The instruments for this research consisted of a questionnaire and two semi-structured interview schedules. The questionnaire was modified from Language Learning Orientations Scale – Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, and Amotivation Subscales (Noels, Pelletier, Clément, & Vallerand 2000: 84-85). The Writing Motivation Questionnaire was first piloted on 30 undergraduates, and then used for the main study. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section includes 12 statements on writing motivation types (i.e., amotivation, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation), two on students’ attitude toward writing tasks, and one on students’ attitude toward English writing, measured by a 7-point Likert scale (1 = I strongly disagree; 7 = I strongly agree). The second section of the questionnaire was on the relevant background information of students’ writing experience and their comments on current writing instruction. It included eight items of multiple choices and one open question. Two semi-structured interview (Merriam 1998) schedules were designed for students and instructors. These interviews intended to gain an insight into the impact of motivation on students’ process of learning to write. The guideline for students was mainly on their attitudes and feelings towards their teachers’ instruction and their previous English writing experiences. The guideline for instructors focuses on their methods of teaching English writing and their perceptions of their students’ motivation on learning to write in English. 3. Data collection The data were collected during the 9th week of the 16-week fall semester in 2006. The two instructors reserved fifteen minutes of the class time for their students to complete the questionnaire. The student participants were informed in advance that their participation was voluntary, their responses were anonymous and only used for research purposes, and their teachers had no access to their responses. Sixty-two copies of the questionnaire were issued and 57 copies were valid. Four students (two “good” and two “weak” writers) were interviewed individually at their spare time and each interview lasted about 40 minutes. The two instructors were also interviewed individually and each interview lasted about 60 minutes. All the interviews were conducted in Mandarin and recorded with permission. 4 4. Data analysis The questionnaire data were analyzed by using a statistical analysis program (SPSS 11.0). The statistical analysis examined the general tendency of the student participants’ writing motivation types and the impact of the demographic features (e.g., gender differences) on various types of motivation. The interviews were transcribed verbatim in the original language used (Chinese). Adopting the qualitative research methods of analytic induction (Goetz & LeCompte 1984) and constant comparison (Miles & Huberman 1994), the qualitative data (interview transcripts and answers to open questions) were read iteratively for recurring themes or patterns regarding their EFL writing motivation. Findings and Discussion 1. The types of motivation The data analysis showed that the participating Chinese students had clear motivation to learn to write in English. The types of motivation of those students had were in the descending order of extrinsic motivation (M = 4.926), intrinsic motivation (M = 4.611), and amotivation (M = 2.439). The students appeared to have stronger extrinsic motivation. Table 3 presents the mean score for each subtype of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Table 3 Mean of seven subtypes of motivation for learning to write in English Amotiva-ti on Mean 2.439 Extrinsic motivation Intrinsic motivation External Introjected Identified Accomplish- Know- Stimula- Regulation Regulation Regulation ment ledge tion 4.211 4.719 5.746 4.711 5.702 3.965 As shown in Table 3, identified regulation ranked first with the mean score of 5.746, suggesting that the participants had recognized the underlying value of learning to write in English. More than one third of the participants (38.6%) strongly believed that learning to write in English was good for their personal development. Identified regulation is the most autonomous and self-determined among the three subtypes of extrinsic motivation. That is, these participants appeared to be more autonomous in their learning to write in English. Intrinsic motivation to knowledge ranked the second with the mean score of 5.702. Intrinsic motivation is the most self-determined one (Ryan & Deci 2000). This meant that students learned to write in English for their pleasure of learning a new skill or new knowledge. The students’ writing motivation came primarily from their inherent satisfaction of doing the activity (English writing). The third one was introjected regulation with the mean score of 4.719. In this instance, the motivation came from internal pressure of students. More than half the participants (61.4%) thought that they would feel ashamed if they could not write in English after so many years of English learning. Intrinsic motivation to accomplishment ranked the fourth with the mean score of 4.711. This motivation came from the pleasure of feeling competent. Over half the students (57.9%) believed that they could feel the satisfaction when they were in the process of accomplishing writing 5 exercises in English. Many students (71.9%) said that they could get a feeling of accomplishment in their practice of English writing. The result indicated that students had a relatively high intrinsic motivation to improving their English writing competence. External regulation was in the fifth place with the mean score of 4.211. Its level of self-determination is the lowest. It suggested that students learned English writing to satisfy some external demand, for example, to pass exams. Among the participants, 45.6% of them said that their purpose of learning to write in English was to get a better job; 59.6% of them admitted that their motive was to pass the exam. However, 35.1% of the participants expressed that their learning to write in English was not for the sake of passing the examination. The sixth was intrinsic motivation to stimulation with the mean score of 3.965. This is the purest type of motivation. However, it ranked the last but one in this study. Only 28.1% of the students agreed that they experienced a “high” feeling (excitement) while writing in English. In contrast, 40.4% of the students said they did not experience any enjoyment in their process of learning to write. Amotivation ranked the last with the mean score of 2.439. This result showed that most of the student participants learned to write in English with a clear learning goal. 2. Gender differences in writing motivation The ANOVA analysis of the questionnaires (see Appendix A) showed that gender differences were rendered nonsignificant on amotivation and intrinsic motivation. However, the influence of gender remained significant on external regulation (Q3, p = .031) and identified regulation (Q8, p = .024). Table 4 illustrates the mean score of each question item answered by the female and male participants. In terms of Question 3, the mean score for the female students’ choices was 4.59, which was more than male students’ (M = 3.43). For Question 8, the mean score for the female students’ choices (M = 6.23) was also more than male students’ (M = 5.17). This result indicated that female students were more aware of the external demand and the essential value of learning to write in English. Table 4 Amotivation Item Q1 .68 Sig. 7 2.3 M/ F 2 M/ M 2.4 9 Gender differences Extrinsic motivation Q2 Q3 Q5 Q6 Q7 .306 .031 .877 .256 .170 2.73 4.59 4.5 5.09 6.18 2.29 3.43 4.57 4.49 5.74 Notes: M/F: Mean of female students Intrinsic motivation Q8 .02 4 6.2 3 5.1 7 Q9 Q11 Q12 .256 .083 .178 4.59 4.95 5.36 4.03 4.14 4.71 Q1 Q1 3 4 .38 .51 9 4 5.9 3.8 1 6 5.5 3.5 7 7 M/M: Mean of male students Q3: In order to get a better job later on, I learn to write in English. Q8: I learn to write in English, because I choose to be the kind of person who can write in a second language. 3. Attitudes towards teaching and learning English writing 6 The two instructors (Wan and Yang) commented that the students had quite low motivation towards the development of English writing competence except passing the College English Test Band 4 (CET-4). For example, the female instructor Wan said: 他们只是完成作业,不注重写作过程自己的提高。老师不布置作文,自己是不会去写的。 还是为了考试吧。(Wan, interview) The two instructors commented that the students did not really see the value of learning to write in English. Interestingly, instead of helping students see the importance of English writing competence, they primarily prepared their students for the CET-4 in their daily practice of English writing instruction. The writing topics for the students to practice were similar to those in the CET-4. In their opinion, the students were not capable of practicing other types of writing because the students had difficulty in expressing their ideas at their current disposal of English proficiency. As the male instructor Yang commented, 学生没有能力完成,我对他们能力怀疑,他们想说的,说不出来。(Yang, Interview) The two instructors expressed that it was time-consuming for them to teach English writing as a part of their English courses because there were so many texts required to be taught over the semester. In addition, they felt that the students gained little from English writing instruction. In their words, 写作(教学) ,收效小,花精力太大。改一篇作文,要 20 来分钟吧,一个班就 60 来人, 而且收效不大,有一些错误,是反反复复的出现,还是错,都是一些基本的错误。(Wan, interview) 他们(对英语写作)态度根本不对,写完根本不看。经常犯最简单的语法错误 ……学生写出来的内容基本都一样。英语写作教学是浪费时间,他们输入 的东西太少,没法输出。(Yang, Interview) In contrast, the four interviewed students showed different opinions from their instructors’ perception of their writing motivation. Zhu and Li were considered as good writers by their instructors. They were highly self-determined and autonomous L2 writers with strong intrinsic motivation. Zhu thought language was for communication and exchanging ideas. Furthermore, Zhu believed that it was necessary for a qualified university graduate to acquire English writing competence. Zhu enjoyed writing in English and noticed his achievement through English writing practice. Zhu’s motive to write in English came from “the self”. Likewise, Li said it was pleasurable for him to be able to communicate in another language. Li’s writing motivation came from his innate satisfaction. Li preferred to write without too many requirements, for example, the words’ limitation, because those requirements constrained his thought. Li commented that the topics given by his instructor were not related to their life and wished that they could approach different kinds of English writing such as resume, report, poems or novels and so on over their two-year university English courses. Compared to the writing course given by the Chinese instructor, they all favored the writing course given by the foreign instructor. The foreign instructor put more attention on the structure and content, whereas the Chinese instructor focused on grammar. The foreign instructor taught them how to communicate in English, whereas the Chinese instructor taught them how to pass the CET-4. In Li’s words, 7 更喜欢外教的题目,和实事联系的比较紧。课下去写,上课讨论,意见综合一下,就差不多了…… 我觉得讨论的有价值,印象深刻,可以相互 share……讨论完了,就有很强的欲望去写出来了…… (中国老师)关注结果,外教(关注)是过程……我觉得外教的更好,让思维更活跃……咱的 老师(中国老师)还是为了过级,太死板了,应试性太强。外教关注的是实际交际能力。(Li, interview) Wang and Zhang were considered as weak writers by their instructors, but they all held a positive attitude toward learning to write in English. Wang said that: (用英语)写些东西,还是蛮好的,是种享受。英语能表达出汉语表达不出的感受,更 舒服。学英语,就是为了用,起码需要以后表达自己思想吧,写还是需要的。(Wang, interview) Wang attached an importance to the practice of writing skill in English learning. This showed that she understood the importance of English writing practice. Wang appeared to have strong intrinsic motivation in her English writing practice. Similar to Zhu, Zhang thought writing in English was an important communicative skill. He considered that his English writing ability could reflect his overall competence of English language. After so many years of English learning, he thought he should be able to write in English. In other words, He felt guilty or shame if he could not write in English. Zhang showed his introjected regulation motivation in his learning to write in English. Zhang also said that his main purpose of learning to write in English was to pass exams. That is, the external demand was another motive for him to learn to practice English writing. Wang and Zhang showed negative feeling toward the current exam-oriented English writing instruction. Wang hoped that the topics given by her instructor could be interesting and related to their life. Zhang hoped that the writing task could give them an opportunity to do research before writing. Zhang commented that his teacher’s primary focus on grammar demotivated his interests in English writing practice. Wang indicated that she obtained little new information about English writing from their university English courses, because she had learned about the basic requirements on English essay writing (e.g., topic sentences, supporting ideas, etc.) from her previous high school English courses. 4. Comments on English writing instruction Commenting on the current English writing instruction, in their responses to the questionnaire, fifteen students (of 57 participants) said clearly that they wanted to learn practical writing, such as resume, report, note, and so on. The majority of the participants (71.9%) believed that English writing skill was a useful communication tool. Similar to the participants in Heng and Abdullah (2004), the participating Chinese college students highly valued English writing skill in their life and future work. The participants also gave their comments on the writing tasks in the English writing courses. In the questionnaire, two items (Question 10 and Question 15) were about English writing exercises. Table 5 shows the statistic analysis results of these items. Many participants (52.6%) held a negative feeling toward the writing exercises in class. They wanted to write more freely and did not like to have so many stringent requirements. Over half the participants (63.2%) thought that those writing exercises were challenging for them. It appeared that the writing exercises in the English writing courses did not arouse students’ interests. 8 Table 5 Strongly disagreedisagree Results of Question10 and Question 15 Mean Strongly agree - No comment agree female male Q10 30 52.6% 8 14.0% 19 33.3% 4.14 3.31 Q15 13 22.8% 8 14.0% 36 63.2% 4.91 4.54 Notes: Question 10: I feel the writing exercise in class is interesting. Question 15: The writing exercise in class is challenging for me. Conclusion This study found that the participating Chinese EFL students had clear motivation to learn to write in English. The students appeared to see the underlying value of learning to write in English (as shown in the high mean score of identified regulation = 5.746). The students believed that the development of English writing competence was beneficial to their individual professional growth. The students also showed the strong tendency of intrinsic motivation to knowledge, indicating that students were autonomous and self-determined EFL student writers. There was no significant gender difference in writing motivation except on the two subtypes of motivation - external regulation and identified regulation. The female students seemed to be more aware of the external demand and importance of developing English writing competence than the male students. This study also found that the discrepancies existed between the instructors’ assumption of their students’ writing motivation and students’ expectation towards English writing learning. The instructors assumed that their students practiced English writing primarily for passing the CET-4. Consequently, the instructors focused on grammar and training students to write according to the CET-4 writing model. However, the students showed strong motivation toward acquiring English writing competence. They understood the importance of improving their English writing competence. They were highly motivated to learn to practice different kinds of writing exercises besides the CET-4 writing model. The findings of this study suggest some implications for education and research. This study suggests the importance of the teacher’s knowledge on the students for his or her effective teaching (Cook 1996; Silva 1990). It is important and necessary for the teachers to spend time learning about their students’ motivation, attitudes or demands before the implementation of any course syllabus. In particular, the instructors of English writing courses need to take into account the affective factors of their students in their preparation of the English writing course. The teachers can inform their students of the importance of English writing competence at the beginning of the course and give the students meaningful and challenging writing tasks to arouse and maintain their motivation of learning to write in English. As the present study mainly focused on types of writing motivation by Chinese EFL learners, further research needs to examine the relationship between EFL writers’ writing achievements and their motivation orientations. The present study examined a small number of non-English major students from one university. Further research needs to investigate the students from 9 different academic backgrounds to verify the findings of this study and compare the motivation of more successful and less successful EFL writers. Furthermore, further research needs to explore other affective factors, such as anxiety in EFL writing and examining the relationship between motivation and anxiety. The longitudinal studies are also called for to better understand the learning process that Chinese EFL students experience in the development of their English writing competence. References [1] Arnold, J. Affect in language learning [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. [2] Brown, J. D., & T. S. Rodgers. Doing second language research [M]. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. [3] Cook, V. Second language learning and language teaching [M]. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., 1996. [4] Deci, E. L., & R. M. Ryan. The “What” and “Why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior [J]. Psychological Inquiry, 2000, 11(4):227–268. [5] Dörnyei, Z. Understanding L2 motivation: On with the challenge [J]! Modern Language Journal, 1994, 78: 515-523. [6] Dörnyei, Z. Motivation in second and foreign language learning [J]. Language Teaching, 1998, 31:117-135. [7] Ellis, R. The study of second language acquisition [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. [8] Goetz, C., & LeCompte, M. Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1984. [9] Hayes, J.R. A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing [A]. In C. M. Levy, & Ransdell, S. (Ed.), The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods, Individual Differences, and Applications [C]. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996. [10] Heng, C.S., & A.N. Abdullah. Exploring affect in ESL writing behavior [J]. The English Teacher, 12, 2004. [11] Merriam, S. B. Qualitative research and case study applications in education [M]. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998. [12] Miles, M., & Huberman, A. Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994. [13] Noels, K.A., L. G. Pelletier, & R. Clément. Why are you learning a second language? Motivational orientations and self-determination theory [J]. Language Learning, 2000(50): 57-85. [14] Ryan, R.M., & E.L. Deci. Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being [J]. American Psychologist, 2000, 1, 68-78. [15] Sasaki, M., & K. Hirose. Explanatory variables for EFL students’ expository writing [J]. Language Learning, 1996, 46(1): 137-174. [16] Sasaki, M. Toward an empirical model of EFL writing processes: An exploratory study [J]. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2000, 9(3): 259-291. [17] Silva, T. Second language composition instruction: Developments, issues, and directions in ESL [A]. In B. Kroll (ed.). Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom [C]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. [18] 边永卫,语言学习动机与学习者自我认同建构——中外研究综述 [A],中国大学生英语学习社会心理——学习 10 动机与自我认同研究 [C],高一虹等著。北京:外语教学与研究出版社,2003. [19] 杜福兴,学习动机与大学生英语写作 [J], 《外语与外语教学》2004(7):28-31. [20] 高一虹, 中国大学生英语学习社会心理——学习动机与自我认同研究 [M], 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,2003. [21] 纪康丽, 如何提高学生的元认知知识——英语写作教学实验[J], 《外语教学》2005(2). [22] 刘宽平, 周业芳, 曹小燕, 提高中国学生英语写作能力的有效途径[J], 《外语教学》2003(6). Appendix A The questionnaire on writing motivation Amotivation Q1: I truly have the impression of wasting my time in studying English writing. Q2: When I write in English, I cannot come to see why I study to write in English. External Regulation Extinctive Motivation Introjected Regulation Q3: In order to get a better job later on, I learn to write in English. Q5: I learn English writing because there is a section on writing in every English test. Q6: Because I would feel ashamed if I couldn’t write in English. Q7: I learn to write in English, because I think it is good for my personal Identified development. Regulation Q8: I learn to write in English, because I choose to be the kind of person who can write in a second language. Accomplishment Intrinsic Motivation Knowledge Q11: For the satisfaction I feel when I am in the process of accomplishing writing exercises in English. Q12: I learn English writing for getting a sense of success. Q13: I learn English writing for the pleasure I experience in learning the knowledge of writing in another language. Q9: For the enjoyment I experience when I write in another language. Stimulation Q14: I write in English for the “high” feeling that I experience while writing in English. Note: Q: Question An Exploratory Study on Writing Motivation of Chinese EFL Learners MA Huan1 & YANG Luxin2 (1. Basic English Education Publishing, FLTRP, Beijing 100089; 2. National Research Center for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089) Abstract: This study investigated the motivational orientations of a group of 57 college-level Chinese EFL writers and their perceptions of current English writing instruction in university. Data included the questionnaire responses from 57 students and the in-depth interviews with 4 students and 2 instructors. Analysis of the questionnaires suggested that the majority of the participants were highly motivated to learn to write in English. There was no significant gender difference in overall motivational orientations except in two subtypes of motivation (i.e., external 11 regulation and identified regulation). Analysis of the interview transcripts showed the discrepancies on students’ writing motivation between what the students perceived and what their instructors assumed. There was also a gap between what students expected from English writing courses and what the instructors actually provided in English writing courses. The findings of this study calls for further research on students’ motivation of learning to write in English. Key words: English writing motivation; college English; intrinsic motivation; extrinsic motivation; English writing instruction 收稿日期:2006-07-31;修订稿:2006-10-09 作者简介: 马 欢,女,外语教学与研究出版社基础英语教育事业部。研究方向:英语语言教育。Email: [email protected]. 杨鲁新,女,北京外国语大学中国外语教育研究中心副教授,博士。研究方向:外语教育、外语写作教学研究、应 用语言学。Email: [email protected]. 12
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