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　[ Abstract] 　This paper p resents the results of a survey of learning motivati on and the effect of teacher variables on tertiarylevel students of foreign language learning ( FLL) . The analysis, which is based on the qualitative data collected fr om 108 randomly selected students of three universities, sheds light on the students’needs as foreign language learners,es pecially their p references concerning the teacher fact orswhich may significantly affect the motivati on and achievement of their learning endeavors .
I . Background and ObjectivesIn the 1970 s, the research in app lied linguistics be2gan to shift from teachers’teaching to students’learning,and since then on increasing number of studies have beenundertaken from the students’pers pective[ 1 ]. Most of thestudies focus on students’attitudes and motivation in for2eign language learning . Rod Ellis put for ward three as2pects of L2 acquisition to be considered: (1) the externalenvironment ; (2) the ’ black box’( i . e . the learner’ sexisting knowledge and the internalmechanisms that guideL2 acquisition) ; and (3) individual learner factors, suchas age and motivation[ 2 ]. It is notable that these factorsare interrelated to each other and function together as asystem and that teachers p lay a dominant role in the sys2tem. Stern believes that language teacher and languagelearner are two p rincipal actors in the scheme of languagelearning, and points out that“the teacher, like the learn2er, brings to language teaching certain characteristicswhich may have bearing on educational treatment :www.51lunwen.org age,sex, p revious education, and pers onal qualities . ” [ 3 ]The question this paper intends to answer is, to whatextent and in what as pects teachers, as mediators of thelanguage and the outcomes of language learning affect FLLin the context of China .
II . Survey Design and Conduction1. Purpose . The study attemp ts to investigate theeffects of language teacher variables s pecifically on atti2tudes and motivations of the English tertiary learners andtheir learning outcomes in Chinese context .2. Rep resentation and the interviewees . The surveywas conducted in three different types of national2level keyuniversities among 108 tertiary students in Beijing . Tsing2hua University rep resents science / technology based colle2ges, Beijing Forestry University rep resents natural re2sources based colleges and Beijing Foreign StudiesUniver2sity rep resents s ocial science based colleges . The formertwo contain both English2 majors ( EM) and non2 Englishmajors (NEM ) and Beijing Foreign Studies Universitycontains only English majors . The following three Tablesp rovide the basic information of the four group s of studentssurveyed .3. Questionnaire . The surveywasmade in the form ofdirect questionnaire that includes 12 items in three parts:(1) learner’ s personal information; ( 2) pers pectives toFLL; (3) teacher factors in FLL. ( See the Appendix)III . The Survey Results1. The learning purpose . Based on the questionnaire,38. 2% indicate that they learn the foreign language in or2der to get decent jobs; 10% learn it for the university de2gree they are working for and 3. 6 % for going abroad,and 6. 4% of the students state that they are required tolearn by school . Another 10% of the students make morethan one choice regarding the purpose of learning a foreignlanguage . They choose both“for a degree”and“a betterjob”or either of them. Inter