A Survey on Sri Lankan students’ learning motivation and proper recommendations for teaching strategy

Abstract

Learning motivation has always been one of the important emotional factors, which effects students’ language learning, it has inevitably imposed a great impact on the language learning of Chinese language learners in Sri Lanka. Motivation itself is a complex dynamic psychological process, to study this not only requires the comprehensive research into the internality of learners, but also should the externality of language students be taken into account as well. A research into learners’ learning motivation from various perspectives is a win-win result, which on one hand helps students know better about their own learning state, but on the other hand also provides academic teaching support for teachers so that students could perform better in Chinese language learning. This article is based on the theoretical support of studying motivation from subjects such as education, psychology, and second language acquisition. By drawing on the studies in the teaching fields of scholars worldwide from both Chinese and English language, it aims at the further study and analysis of Sri Lankans’ language learning motivation in the form of questionnaire. The main purpose of the research is to find features of the locals’ learning intention and the reasons for doing so, and also to lay a solid foundation for TCSOL teaching. According to the findings from questionnaire and analysis that we studied, most of Sri Lankans’ studying motivations are quite clear. Their motivation differs in three different dimensions, which are gender, age and Chinese language level respectively.