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Chapter I Introduction

1.1 Relationship between motivation and leaning
What is motivation? Wall (1958) has ever said that “motivation is perhaps the most obscure anddifficult of all theoretical issues in general and educational psychology”.Up to now, many scholars have given different definitions of motivation from differentperspectives. Brophy (1985: 3) defines motivation as “a theoretical construct used to explain theinitiation, direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior, especially goal-directed behavior”. As amatter of fact, motivation is an inner psychological process, which can not be observed directly butcan be inferred through some actions, such as the choice of tasks, intensity of efforts and persistenceof actions. The interest in something is not only the important characteristics of motivation but alsothe significant incentive for the generation of motivation. It can stimulate the human actions and makeindividuals constantly exert more efforts to a certain goal.It has been acknowledged that motivation is one major aspect of individual initiatives and itplays a significant role in activation, guidance, maintenance and regulation of the learners’ behaviors.It can stimulate individuals’ behaviors by promoting them to make some actions, and then individualsbecome active to take part in some activities.Motivation directs actions，and in turn actions promote individuals to achieve their goals. Whenindividual activities are produced by the stimulation of motivation, the persistence of the activities canenhance their motivation to put more efforts to some extent. So motivation indicates individuals havegoals which can guide the direction of individual behaviors and provide the impetus.Learning motivation refers to an internal motivation which can promote students to learn directlyand it is also an encouragement and guidance for students’ learning (Chen Qi & Liu Rude, 1997). It isshown through some internal psychological factors such as the desire, curiosity, interest, ambition andemotion. Learning motivation can affect learning direction, process and effect.Learning motivation is the same as motivation. Learning motivation is the main internal drivingforce for learning and it can motivate students’ learning behaviors, and in turn students’ learningbehaviors can strengthen learning motivation to achieve their targets.Therefore, just as Ausubel (1958, cited by Chen Suping 2007: 153) says, “the relationshipbetween learning motivation and learning is by no means a one-way relationship but a typicalmutually reinforcing relationship.” It means that motivation promotes learning by enhancing behavior,and the gained knowledge can strengthen motivation to continue the further study in turn. Learningmotivation and learning activities interact with each other. Therefore, it is important to stimulate andmaintain students’ learning motivation for university education.

1.2 Significance of the research into English learning motivation
With the global economic development, the world has become a small village with more frequentpersonnel exchanges among people from different countries. In such a background, the ability to useEnglish has become one of the most important abilities of the contemporary college students, soEnglish learning becomes an integral part of university education.Moreover, people have increasingly recognized that the most important facto本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。