Motivation is so important in language learning that it has been studied for almost 60 years。 Most of the language teachers assent that the vital element influencing students’ language learning is their learning motivation。 Brown, an American linguist stated that motivation is indeed very important and one can gain success in second language learning as long as he has the suitable motivation when he is learning the language (184)。

The present thesis investigates the high school students’ motivations of English learning and the influential factors。 At last, some schemes will be given to improve the motivation of these students。 

The thesis includes five sections。 Chapter one explores the study background and the outline of this investigation。 In the second chapter, a concise review of the study of motivation, the classified types of the students’ motivation s well as the previous studies on the elements that affect the motivation of students will be given which places a reliable foundation for the theoretical background of the thesis。 Chapter three deals with the research plan and gives the subjects of the study, the instruments used to learn students’ motivation as well as the procedures of this investigation。 Chapter four includes the research results and the useful methods that can be used in the etching of English。 The last chapter is going to give a summary for the major significance of this 

thesis。

II。 Literature Review

2。1 Theories of Motivation 

Motivation is a rather internal drive and emotional effect that encourages people to pursue a course of action (Wang 72)。 Spolsky said, “The more motivation a learner has, the more time he or she will spend learning an aspect of a second language” (3)。 

Ball (227) asserted that motivation is the most important concept in any theory of education。 Thus, it is necessary to prove different points of view on definitions of motivation so as to attain a better understanding of the role of motivation in language learning。 As what Ball said, motivated students refer to those who study hard to live up to the expectation of teacher。 The students who have no motivation are those who do not do some things in the teachers’ expectation。 Compared with teachers, psychologists  study the concept of motivation to a greater extent。 Lewin (346) claimed that learning itself is the driving force, it determines the success。 But, Bruner (176) does not agree with this view, he countered that when the learner is forced or driven to learn, he or she can not to maintain a natural curiosity。 On the contrary, Beard and Senior (80), two behaviorist psychologists, think that “incentives and rewards” are motivations for building behavior。 Spencer (59) seems to agree with this view, suggesting that it is most important for teachers to use all kinds of types of “rewards” to stimulate students to possess “interest and goals” in the performance of tasks。 论文网

The best-known and frequently quoted definition of L2 learning motivation is Gardner’s。 As what Gardner said (10), motivation is “the extent to which an inpidual works or strives to learn the language in this activity。” Gardner and MacIntyre (2) express this again 8 years later, in a simpler way as “motivation is defined by three components: the desire of achieving a goal, the effort extended in this direction, and the satisfaction with the task。” Based on these conceptions, many language researchers have made great contribution to the role of motivation in language learning。

Williams, M。 & Burden, R (65) defined the motivation as: “Motivation may be

constructed as a state of cognitive and emotional arousal, which leads to a conscious decision to act, and which gives to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort order to attain a previously set goals。” This definition involves three stages: 1。 The initial stage: whatever the cause, the inpidual’s interest or enthusiasm is aroused; 2。 The decision-making stage: the inpidual consciously decided what action to take; 3。 The effort-sustaining stage: once the activity has begun, the inpidual needs to persist until the desired goal is achieved。