Original Article: The Role of Motivation in University Learner’s Language Acquisition in China | Writer: Xuefei Wang—Beijing University of Technology | Source: Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN 1539-8072, USA, September. 2006, Vol. 3, No. 9 (Serial No. 33).
“The Role of
Motivation in University Learner’s Language Acquisition in China” is an article
written by Xuefei Wang—a female lecturer of College of Foreign Languages, Beijing University of Technology—researcher
in corpus linguistics and English language teaching fields. The aim of her article
are to describes (1) different perspectives of motivation and their respective
contributions, and then, (2) maintain students’ motivation in college classroom
in China.
In
her article, Wang organized the topics in four subtopics: (1) Introduction, (2)
Understanding Motivation, (3) Maintining Student’s Motivation, and (4)
Conclusion. The aim of this review is try to elaborate her perspective about
motivation in its correlation toward the efforts in increasing student’s
language acquisition in China, especially the university learner in China.
Wang
explained that success in learning a foreign language or second language depends on a
variety of factors such
as the
qualification of the teacher, the appropriateness of the teaching approach, the amount of exposure to the natural
target language practice, the quality of the course book, the
duration and intensity of the language
course, and last but
not least, the characteristics of the language learner.
According to Wang’s opinion, motivation is one element of the learner
characteristics that has risen in the popularity polls in
recent literature as a facilitator
in the learning process. It is claimed that students’ motivation needs to be taken into account for input to become intake.
Referenced on Cohen and Dörnyei (2002), Wang explained that motivation is the key learner variable and nothing much happens without it.
Now, the questions are, “How to understanding
motivation, and then, how to maintinning students’ motivation in learning a
foreign language?”
For the first question, Wang describe that there are many dimension
of motivation, among other things: holistic dimension, and linguistics-cultural
dimension. Wang also mention the other dimension of motivation as a later
result in research studies by Crookes and Schmidt (1991) and Oxford and Shearin (1994).
In the holistic dimension of motivation, Wang
said, the individual is viewed as organism seeking to realize its fullest
potentialities: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. She related her own perspective toward The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Individual Needs. This approach regards the learner as a whole person rather than focus only upon fostering and employing his
cognitive skills. Therefore,
teachers should help learners to establish a strong sense of personal
values and fully activate their motivation in foreign or second language acquisition.
At the level
of linguistic-cultural
dimension,
Wang explained that motivation to
learn a foreign or second language has tended to be stated in dichotomy; that is,
learners are driven by either instrumental or integrative motivation. This Wang’s perspective referenced on
Gardner & Lambert
(1972). They learn
English for various
reasons, such as (1) to pass CET-4[i], (2) to have a good control of English so as to
be more competitive in the fierce job market in the future, (3) to lay a solid language foundation for future study in English-speaking
countries,
such as Britain, America, (4) to
be able to communicate
with foreigners fluently,
and (5) to learn the differences and similarities between cultures.
For
the second question, Wang gives us two approaches: (1)
utilizing authentic materials, and then, (2) building the relationship between authentic materials, motivation,
and acquisition.
Authentic materials, Wang said, are those that create an authentic responses,
which inform, stimulate, enrich experience, encourage curiosity, develop judgment, and do other things that real
language does, be it original materials or well-made ones.
As
far as authentic materials are concerned,
they offer much availability from audio-visual materials to literature
(e.g., novels, poems and short stories) and from
computer software to Internet. They can compensate for less
authenticity of the
invented textbooks
to a certain
extent. Feed backs from the students are very encouraging. However, authentic materials are not automatically “good” materials, or necessarily appropriate for learners and their specific goals.
Wang have been seen that authentic materials have a role in language acquisition. One of
the
benefits,
she said, is that they can spark learners’ interest and motivation since they usually contain topics relevant to different profiles of real life. Another benefit
is that they
bring to students the much exposure to natural language.
After
read this article, we can see that in China, motivation of students’ language
acquisition related to many subject in many perspectives including cultural
habit, language teaching system, government educational policy, and the views of
people toward the information and communication technology. But I think, their
problems are similar as all nations problems in the world. In others word,
motivation of students’ language acquisition has became an universal problems.
Wang’s
perspective about understanding
motivation and maintinning students’ motivation in learning a foreign language
can be applied in our efforts to increase motivation of students’ language acquisition. But, we must making sure
that her perspective is feasible to implemented in our condition because each
language has unique characteristics and it also represent the uniqueness of
cultural diversities. ∎
Medan, December 16, 2013
[1] The College English Test,
better known as CET, is a national English as a foreign language test
in the People's Republic of China. The purpose of the CET is to examine the English
proficiency of undergraduate students and postgraduate students in China and
ensure that Chinese undergraduates and postgraduates reach the required English
levels specified in the National College English Teaching Syllabuses (NCETS).
This test has been existed in China for 26 years and now has a huge test
population of 18 million people annually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_English_Test; accessed on Dec. 15, 2013.
