EXPLORING DEMOTIVATION FACTORS OF CHINESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE BASED ON POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

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Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 851-861

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.116 851

E

XPLORING

D

EMOTIVATION

F

ACTORS OF

C

HINESE

L

EARNERS OF

E

NGLISH AS A

F

OREIGN

L

ANGUAGE

B

ASED ON

P

OSITIVE

P

SYCHOLOGY

Yongliang Wang

1

_{, Hefeng Guan}*

2

Abstract

For Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), it is meaningful to identify the factors that suppress their motivation of EFL learning. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was carried out among 265 Chinese EFL learners attending a Chinese-foreign cooperation program of Henan University, China. Then, the potential influencing factors were identified through a multi-factor analysis of variance, and the correlation between the students’ psychological demotivation intensity and their English test score was discussed through Pearson correlation test and regression analysis. The results show that teacher-related factor, self-related factor and institution-related factor are the main causes of psychological demotivation among Chinese EFL learners; the English test score has a significant negative correlation with psychological demotivation intensity; the freshmen and sophomores had an insignificant different in the institution-related factor. The research findings shed new light on the sustainable psychology development of Chinese EFL learners.

Key words: Psychological Demotivation, Demotivation Factors, Positive Psychology, English

as a Foreign Language (EFL).

Received: 07-02-19 | Accepted: 14-07-19

INTRODUCTION

The theory of motivation has been explored in such areas as the educational psychology and motivation analysis, and language learning. In the area of Applied Linguistics, as one of the most objective dimensions of individual differences among various language learners, the motivation of English learning has received considerable attention from language educators. The intensity of motivation can make up for the deficiency of language potential and language learning environment, but in the absence of motivation, language competence and sound teaching syllabus cannot decide the success or failure of language learning, which emphasizes the significance of maintaining the positive

1_{Second Language Writing Teaching and Research Center /}

School of College English Teaching and Research, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China. 2_{School of College English}

Teaching and Research, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.

E-Mail: [email protected]

psychological motivation of students.

Although the intensity of both positive and negative motivation may influence students’ behaviors to some extent, a large number of studies have focused on the positive motivation, thus ignoring the impact of negative motivation on the learning results. This study indicates that English teachers should focus on not only the positive motivation of learners, but their negative motivation as well, for the lack of motivation among learners can influence their learning a target language. That is, language learning failure is directly related to psychological demotivation in the area of language teaching (Wang, 2017). Under such circumstances, this study aims to explore the factors of EFL learners’ “psychological demotivation” in learning English.

LITERATURE REVIEW

“Psychological demotivation” refers to some external forces that reduce or impair the

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YONGLIANG WANG,HEFENG GUAN 852

motivation of learners (Dörnyei, 2014). The study of “psychological demotivation” began with the area of educational communication where scholars found out factors that caused the absence of learning motivation of learners

through questionnaires. Subsequently,

Chambers (1993) first conducted a multi-factor analysis of “psychological demotivation” in the area of English education. He conducted a survey via interviews among 191 students of Grade Nine who lacked the passion for learning English and seven teachers in Leeds, U.K. It has found that teachers were totally different from students towards the understanding of factors causing “psychological demotivation”. It has been evidenced by teachers that there were many factors influencing students’ “psychological demotivation”, including learners’ mentality, learning attitude, society, history and so on, but they rolled out teacher-related factors. However, it has been generally believed by students that factors of “psychological demotivation” included teachers, teaching materials, teaching methods and class size. Notably, his study just simply listed the opinions of teachers and students without objective statistical analysis. Later, Kikuchi (2009) conducted a longitudinal follow-up study of "psychological demotivation" among 250 students for five years. It is found that teachers should offer their students opportunities of airing their viewpoints and proposing their suggestions if they would like to renew/regain their motivation. Different from Kikuchi’s study, Dörnyei (2014) carried out a study through interviews among 50 college students who lacked learning motivation. He explored several factors affecting “psychological demotivation”: teachers’ personality, students’ confidence, learners’ attitudes, English learning environment, learning partners, and curriculum arrangement. Recently, under the influence of European scholars, scholars in Asia have initiated studies of factors causing “psychological demotivation”, but most studies mainly adopted qualitative research methods. For instance, Sakai & Kikuchi (2009), conducted a survey of “psychological demotivation” of English learners

from middle schools through open

questionnaire. One of his findings has aroused our attention, that is, students complain about

excessive homework and rarely participate in class activities, which may be closely interwoven with the learning approaches under the Asian educational background. Later, Kikuchi & Sakai (2009) adapted and revised their own former research methods, combing qualitative with quantitative methods. First, they distributed some open questions, and then classified their responses. After that, they interviewed five students by using think-aloud research method, thus finally designing a questionnaire with 35 questions in five multi-factors. In analyzing data, they adopted the one-way ANOVA and paired sample t-test to examine each factor.

Relevant studies of “psychological demotivation” started relatively late in China. Through literature retrieval, we inserted “psychological demotivation”(“dòng jī jiăn tuì” in Chinese), “weakening motivation”(“dòng jī

xuē ruò” in Chinese), and “negative

motivation”(“fù dòng jī” in Chinese) in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), and the earliest emergence of literature related to the above themes began in 2006, but the studies in this area have thrived since 2011. In view of this, we searched all the literature published on academic journals in Chinese from the year 2011 to 2017, and we found that there were 35 relevant studies that were published on the Chinese academic journals, including 21 empirical studies, and 14 critical literature reviews respectively. In addition, the empirical studies have increased since 2012 on the yearly basis, namely increasing from one piece in 2012 to eight pieces in 2017, as can be clearly seen in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Empirical studies and critical

literature reviews (2011-2017)

Year Empirical Studies

Critical Literature Reviews Number Percentage Number Percentage

2011 - - - - 1 7.14%

2012 1 5.76% 0 0

2013 - - - - 3 21.43%

2014 3 14.29% 1 7.14%

2015 3 14.29% 3 21.43%

2016 6 28.57% 5 35.71%

2017 8 38.10% 1 7.14%

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EXPLORING DEMOTIVATION FACTORS OF CHINESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE BASED ON POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 853

Amongst these studies, we also found that it was Xu & Gao (2014) who first conducted a far-reaching study known as “The development of English learning motivation and learners’ identities: A structural equation modeling analysis of longitudinal data from Chinese universities” in the Chinese education context. Through comparison among relevant literature in this area, Xu and Gao’s construction of the questionnaire, research methods and the analysis are discreet, which plays a leading role in the subsequent studies in China. Therefore, we believe that their study has paved the way for Chinese scholars in the empirical studies.

To conclude, the study of the demotivating factors of EFL learners in China starts late, but some notable achievements have been scored. For instance, research results generally indicate that teacher-related factor is the main factor influencing learners’ English study. Still, there are some deficiencies in current studies, so it is imperative to make further inquiries. First, with regard to research samples, current studies in China mainly center on western classic research methods which exclude the international cooperation program learners’ “psychological demotivation” factors. Then, in terms of research discussion, existing studies merely explore multi-factors of “psychological demotivation”, but fail to put forward corresponding solutions. Notably, as China becomes more internationalized than ever, one of the features in higher education in China is the Chinese-foreign cooperation programs. Many institutions of higher learning in China have established such programs, which normally adopt the "2+2" training model. That is, students finish their study in the first two years at home (first and second academic years), and then in the last two years (third and fourth academic years), they can complete their study in foreign universities after passing some internationally recognized language proficiency tests (TOEFL or IELTS). Considering the special features of this group, their “psychological demotivation” factors may not be totally the same as the students from non-international programs. From this perspective, taking this group as our research samples may better shed light on an overview of “psychological demotivation” of English learners and help further expand the study of motivation in China. Thus, this study intends to explore “psychological demotivation” factors of learning English among students from

a Chinese-foreign program by integrating the current research results.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research questions

1. Does “psychological demotivation” of English learning exist among freshmen and sophomores in the Chinese-foreign cooperation programs? If so, to what do demotivated students attribute their factors of psychological demotivation?

2. Does the students’ psychological demotivation intensity of learning English have any correlation with their English test achievement?

3. With regard to factors causing

“psychological demotivation” in different groups from Chinese-foreign cooperation programs, what incentive measures should be taken?

Participants’ demographic information

This study randomly sampled 300 students from a provincial college in central China, half of whom are freshmen, and the other half sophomores. Because gender is not considered as a variable of this study, there is no strict restriction on the proportion of male and female students. Their majors cover Accounting, International Trade, Computer Science, Business Administration, Statistics and Biology Engineering. The reasons for choosing these groups are as follows. First, English courses are compulsory for those students from this Chinese-foreign cooperation program in the first two years; second, as their academic years rise, the passion for learning English is gradually declining. Therefore, it is imperative to explore

the multi-factors of “psychological

demotivation” of these groups in learning English.

Instrumentation

The measurement of this study mainly used the Questionnaire of Factors of “psychological demotivation” influencing students in English class of universities, an instrumentation validated by Xu & Gao (2014). This study consists of several stages. First, according to previous studies (Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009; Xu & Gao, 2014; Xu, Li, & Curtis, 2015), we selected those factors which are most suitable for Chinese students’

learning environment and formed the

questionnaire of this program. Second, prior to the pilot study, the members in our research

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team had a meeting, discussed together, and agreed to add the specific learning environment of this Chinese-foreign cooperation program, which aimed to provide a comprehensive

understanding of the reasons for the

“psychological demotivation” of students in such a program. After discussion, we added the teaching scenarios relevant to foreign teachers under the teacher-related dimension, added the students’ desire for studying abroad into self -related factors, and added the use of the English books in the original that may influence “psychological demotivation” in such groups into

institution-related factor. Through the

preliminary investigation and reviews of fellow experts, the analysis of results was conducted, and we also deleted and revised ineligible questions. Meanwhile, we deleted the title of our questionnaire, and decided to distribute questionnaires in the absence of teachers which was to avoid the influence of Hawthorne Effect on tested students. That is, those testees are informed to participate in research in advance, and the possibility of anxiety may emerge. All of these will affect the real motivation orientation under the teacher-related dimension. The first part of this questionnaire consists of five questions which are relevant to the intensity of “psychological demotivation” among those tested students. Each question follows two options: Yes or No. If Yes is chosen, five points is given; if No is chosen, one point is given. The level of scores is positively correlated with the intensity of "psychological demotivation" in English learning, that is, the higher the score is, the greater the intensity of “psychological demotivation” will be, and vice versa. The second part of this questionnaire contains 55 items. The first to 21st items are about teacher-related factor; the 22nd to 39th items focus on self-related factor; the 40th to 55th items are about institution-related factor. Items adopted a five-point Likert scale, that is, "5" represents "totally suits my case" and "1" represents "totally inconsistent with my circumstance". At

the end of questionnaire, the tested

participants’ scores were collected so as to examine the correlation between their test

achievement and their psychological

demotivation intensity (freshmen were required to provide their marks of College Entrance Examination in China; while sophomores were required to provide their marks of College English Test of Band 4, CET as a shorthand

below).

During the formal study phase, 300 questionnaires were distributed to classes of different majors by the academic dean of International Education College (non-teacher identity). The purpose of the questionnaire is to fully understand their learning conditions. Twenty minutes later, all the distributed questionnaires were retracted. Some of them were not fully filled out or were suspected to be filled at will. At the end of this survey, 139 valid questionnaires were collected from freshmen (effective rate of 92%), and 126 from sophomore students (effective rate of 84%). The gross number of valid questionnaires is 265 and the total effective rate of the questionnaires is 88%. The following part is the result and analysis of this survey.

Results

The results of statistics indicate that questionnaires among two grades are inherently consistent (Cronbach Alpha ratio reaches 0.961 and 0.959 respectively), and that the whole Cronbach Alpha ratio reaches 0.942; the validity test shows that the KMO values of freshmen and sophomores are 0.864 and 0.724 respectively. The KMO values of the whole questionnaire reach 0.913 and the Sig. ratio is 0.000 which indicates that it is suitable to conduct multi-factor analysis. This study adopted Principal Axis analysis to extract factors, and used Direct Oblimin to explore internal structure of data. The factor load threshold was set to 0.40, so we extracted 47 items. Due to the concentration of items, we conducted a second rotation, and this time the load threshold was set to 0.60, so the final extraction of factorial items between two groups is 13 question items for freshmen and 17 question items for sophomores respectively. The program load capacity and cumulative variance of factors in two grades are shown in table 2 below.

Table 2 shows that the load values of the three factors extracted from the questionnaires of freshmen and sophomores are higher than one. Accumulative explained variance is 45.322% and 47.054% respectively. It is shown that this questionnaire has a sound construction validity in the study of "psychological demotivation" of students with different levels of language learning from the two groups. According to the content of each factor, we named each factor, and extracted three factors influencing

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Table 2.

Comparison of the item load capacity and cumulative variance of psychological

demotivation factors of freshmen and sophomores

Factor Initial Eigenvalues(freshmen) Initial Eigenvalues(sophomores)

Eigenvalue

Explained variance

(%)

Accumulative explained variance

(%)

Eigenvalue

Explained variance

(%)

Accumulative explained variance

(%)

1 18.125 32.954 32.954 17.607 32.012 32.012

2 4.232 7.695 40.649 5.397 9.812 41.825

3 2.570 4.673 45.322 2.876 5.229 47.054

Table 3.

Matrix of psychological demotivation factors of freshmen & sophomores through

direct oblimin rotation

Factor1 teacher-related factor

Factor2 self-related factor

Factor3 institution-related

factor

q3 Teachers’ teaching mode is tedious and

unattractive. .806 (.0)

q11 Teachers do not prepare well. .760 (.0)

q2 Teachers’ explanation are not clear. .753 (.0)

q12 Teachers are less strict. .733 (.0) q14 Teachers focus on exam-oriented skills. .720 (.0) q5 Teachers lack passion for their profession. .714 (.0) q4 Teachers have narrow knowledge. .685 (.0) q7 Teachers rarely communicate with us after class. .658 (.0) q16 Teachers rarely impart extra-curricular knowledge. .0 (.708)

q17 Teachers explain articles through translating each

sentences. .0 (.706)

q18 Teachers speak English at class. .0 (.660) q15 Teachers rarely arrange interesting class activities. .0 (.652)

q22 I am not interested in English. .691 (.0) q31 I often forget what I have learned in English class. .683 (.0)

q27 I feel embarrassed to speak English before my

peers. .658 (.775)

q26 I am afraid I cannot answer questions asked by

teachers. .0 (.760)

q29 I do not know how to learn English after class. .0 (.755) q28 I feel I cannot speak as fluently as other students. .0 (.745)

q25 I do not think my English is so good as other

students. .0 (.727)

q37 I do not think English is closely related to my

future self-development. .0 (.697)

q35 I am not interested in Western culture. .0 (.694) q33 My friends do not like learning English. .0 (.685) q24 I have no confidence in learning English well. .0 (.683) q30 I think it is difficult to memorize words. .0 (.672) q43 There is a lack of relaxing English learning

environment in class. .737 (.0)

q44 I rarely speak English in my personal life. .723 (.0)

q49 The difficulty of textbooks is beyond my English

level. .0 (.755)

q48 Textbooks are not pragmatic, lacking enough real

language learning materials. .0 (.671)

q51 Social activities are few and far between, and

teachers pay no attention to cultivating students’

independent ability to use language.

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“psychological demotivation” of English learners, that is, teacher-related factor, self-related factor and institution-self-related factor. The content of each factor is shown in Table 3. Table 2 also shows that factor 1 (teacher-related factor) is one of the most important factors influencing "psychological demotivation" in the two groups, which indicates that the degrees of "psychological demotivation" in two groups of students are 32.954% and 32.012% respectively; for factor 2 (self-related factor), the explained variance of freshmen is less than 8%, and the explained variance of sophomores is slightly higher than that of freshmen, which reaches 9.812%; with regard to the factor 3 (institution-related factor), their accumulative explained variance is around 5%, so the difference is not very obvious.

To explore what psychological demotivation factors those demotivated students attribute to, we conducted the matrix of psychological

demotivation factors of freshmen and

sophomores by using Direct Oblimin Rotation. The research results are as follows in table 3.

Table 3 shows that the most important factor that leads to "psychological demotivation" in the two groups is teacher-related factor. Freshmen mainly assume that the teachers’ courseware model is too monotonous to attract their interest in English learning; teachers’ preparation is insufficient; their teaching explanation is not clear; course requirements are not rigorous; they have no passion for teaching; they have narrow knowledge; in their classes they mainly take exam-oriented teaching methods as the guidelines; they pay little attention to students. But sophomore students hold that teachers depend too much on textbooks without providing adequate extra-curricular knowledge; the mode of teaching is single (only through the translation method); the class activities are few and far between; English immersion method is also one of the reasons why they have no motivation in class. Given self-related factor, freshmen mainly consider it that they are not interested in English and it is easy for them to forget what teachers have taught, while sophomores’ “psychological demotivation” in English learning is mainly due to the fear that they cannot answer teachers’ questions. Ineffective English learning methods, the lack of interest in Western culture, ineffective peer learning and difficulty in

memorizing words are also included.

Interestingly, both of the two groups agree that it would be embarrassing for them not to answer questions raised by teachers before their peers, which perhaps is influenced by the traditional "face culture" of China. With reference to the

learning environment, freshmen mainly

complain about the bad atmosphere in using English, while sophomores have a higher expectation of teaching materials, such as the improper profoundness of textbooks; the content is not pragmatic; textbooks pay no attention to cultivating their communicative ability.

To seek the answer to the correlation between Chinese EFL learners’ English test

achievement and their psychological

demotivation intensity of learning English, we, using freshman year and sophomore year as research unit, conducted Pearson correlation and regression analysis. Those reluctant to report their English test scores are excluded from the total research samples. There are 287 students in total that can be used to conduct assumed analysis above. Results in table 4 below are as follows.

Table 4.

Correlations between Test

Achievement

and

psychological

demotivation Intensity

Test Achievement Freshman Year

Sophomore Year Pearson

Correlation -. 310(**) -.273(**) Sig. (two-tailed) .000 .000

Number 142 145

No.: 1) ** p≤0.01 (two-tailed test)

Table 4 has shown that those tested participants’ test achievement has a high negative correlation with their psychological demotivation intensity. In other words, the stronger the students’ psychological demotivation intensity is, the lower their test achievement will be. To further examine the cause and effect between their psychological

demotivation intensity and their test

achievement, we conducted linear regression analysis. In this process, we set test achievement as dependent variable, and the extracted factors as independent variable to seek the expected potential factors influencing the participants’ test achievement.

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Table 5.

Model Summary of Linear Regression

R R2 _{Adjusted R}2 _{Std Error of Stimate} _R2 _change

Freshmen .393a .165 .143 7.9174 .017

Sophomores .276b .078 .072 9.35906 .076

F change df1 _df2 _{Sig F change} _{Durbin-Watson}

Freshmen 4.152 1 211 .043 1.880

Sophomores 18.376 1 223 .000 1.583

Factors entered the model:

a. Freshmen: Factor 3 (institution-related), Factor 2 (self-related), Factor 1 (teacher-related) b. Sophomores: Factor 2 (self-related)

Dependent variable: Test achievement

From the linear regression in table 5, it can be noted that there is only one factor (self-related) entering into the model in the sophomore group, and that the expected force towards their test achievement in CET 4 has reached 7.8%. There are three factors (i.e. institution-related, self-related and teacher self-related) entering into the model in the freshman group and the total expected force of these three factors towards their test achievement in College English Entrance examination has reached 16.5%.

We also did a t-test on those two groups of students and a significant difference can be found in these two groups of students’ performances on the three factors (p = .000). However, Sakai & Kikuchi (2009) have found that there is a significant difference in teaching

content, intrinsic motivation and test

achievement, but there does not show any significant difference in teaching facilities and teaching style. The research findings have been consistent with their result. Therefore, it is suggested that teaching content, students’ individual factor as well as hunger for higher points in various tests may have a great influence on the Asian students’ psychological demotivation of learning English. Also, the regression analysis has shown that the intensity of psychological demotivation has a negative correlation with the testes’ English achievement, i.e. the stronger psychological demotivation intensity is, the poorer their learning achievement will be; students’ individual factor has a certain expected force on their English test achievement, which has been consistent with the scholars’ research findings at home and abroad. As some scholars (Gass & Selinker, 2008; Xu & Fan, 2017) have suggested, textbooks, teachers, and teaching environment may have directly influenced L2 learners’ study. As such, EFL teachers in Asia should make the best use of environment factor to arouse and sustain EFL

learners’ learning interest.

DISCUSSION

In order to discuss the real situation of “psychological demotivation” of students learning English in a Chinese-foreign cooperation program and factors influencing “psychological demotivation”, this study designed a questionnaire suitable for students in the cooperation program based on previous studies. First, we conducted a test about the credibility and construct validity of this questionnaire. It is found that both the credibility and construct validity are well consistent. Different from the previous western and Chinese questionnaires, this questionnaire, on the basis of real English learning situation of students in a

Chinese-foreign cooperation program, extracted

questions suitable for students’ learning, thus providing guidance for teachers from Chinese-foreign cooperation programs to reflect on their teaching.

Research data of this study indicates that the phenomenon of “psychological demotivation” exists among freshmen and sophomores indeed. The lack of motivation in students’ learning owes to teacher-related factors, self-related factors and institution-related factors. This research result is consistent with the previous studies (Xu & Gao, 2014), which shows that factors affecting “psychological demotivation” of students in such a Chinese-foreign cooperation program are indeed various. Notably, freshmen believe that it is the teachers that should assume more responsibility for students’ lack of motivation, but it is also found that students largely depend on teachers in English learning. On the contrary, sophomores tend to do self-reflection; freshmen are very dissatisfied with teachers’ tedious teaching mode, but sophomores raise more rigorous requirements on the choice of English textbook contents, the pragmatic features of

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materials and the social essence of textbooks. This phenomenon may be relevant to our education mode in high schools. Under the background of test-oriented education system, the teacher-centered teaching method still universally exists where teachers just focus on imparting knowledge instead of providing guidelines for students’ autonomy in learning and thinking habit, which to a large extent exerts a negative influence on the improvement of overall quality of students. As freshmen just entered college, they have not fully adapted to college life, and have no other alternatives but to hinge on cramming teaching mode. But learning in college emphasizes students’ autonomy in learning, and the teachers’ leading

role seems insignificant. Under such

circumstances, it is more likely for students to shift their undue dependence on high school teachers to college teachers, thus the teacher-related factor has become one of the dominant “psychological demotivation” factors. After one year’s learning and adaption, sophomores have gradually adapted to the learning mode in universities, so their independent learning ability has been further enhanced. Meanwhile, as they grow up, sophomores think more maturely. At that phase, they tend to owe “psychological demotivation” factors of English learning to themselves, like improper learning methods and a lack of understanding of foreign culture.

However, as the students enrolling in this Chinese-foreign cooperation program, they need to use English to effectively communicate with others in the future discourses of learning, profession and social community. For example, when they are applying for their overseas postgraduate study, English will definitely become an essential measure. As the present study has shown, the teacher-related factor is a main dimension for the freshers’ psychological demotivation of learning English, while the sophomores attribute their psychological demotivation of learning English to their own improper learning methods. This has proposed great challenges for the traditional teaching methods. The past 30 years of reform and opening-up to the outside world in China has witnessed the dramatic improvement of the Chinese EFL learners’ basic English level and ability , but various fields have had a higher demand on their English level due to China’s continual integration into the international

community, and active participation in the international business. Obviously, traditional “cramming-duck” teaching system cannot ensure a lively English class or satisfy a need of sustainable development in English pedagogy. Sustainable development is aimed to sustain, improve and enhance the contemporary and future generations’ life standard, which has embodied the fundamental functions of education towards the development of the whole human beings. As the globalization trend has rapidly developed, we, to greet challenges ahead on, have to take a hard look at this matter from a global perspective and advance some innovative teaching methods to foster the creative Chinese talents with international vision. Education is a lifelong task, learning is largely dependent on students themselves, and teachers are merely facilitators to help students to autonomously construct knowledge. Because college students during this period of university should use their time and learning resources available to develop their autonomy in learning, self-regulated strategies, self-assessment ability, innovative ability and internal motivation have become priorities for Chinese EFL teachers.

As is known, corrective learning methods can facilitate the sustainable development of English study. Therefore, it is urgent to innovate English teaching approaches. The following five dispositions can be made to address this issue. In the first place, “experiential learning” pattern is one of the most effective ways of developing the students’ English learning ability and achieving their sustainable development of

English ability. Experience, practice,

environment and action are the marked features of “experiential learning” pattern. In the pre -teaching stage, teachers need set a learning syllabus and categorize the learning aim into three sub-divisions, namely cognition, affection and action experience. In the while-teaching stage, they are recommended to use the

multi-dimensional teaching system, such as

multimedia, database, digital textbooks, learning CDs, and personalized online courses (SPOCs or MOOCs), so as to figure out the outline of language knowledge and cultural materials (Xu & Fan, 2017). In the post-teaching stage, teachers may organize some colorful English activities to spark their students’ interest of learning. Chinese EFL learners, during these teaching stages, can grasp the English learning strategies that will lay a solid foundation for

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their lifelong learning.

In addition, the sustainable development of English learning ability could not live without the digital literacy. At this time and age, digital information technology and media have exerted a great influence on every walk of our life. In the global business, digital literacy in the knowledge economy society has become one of the basic qualities for every global citizen in the age of information technology. According to Eshet (2004), digital literacy can be defined as the ability of understanding and using various digital resources and information around. Digital literacy not only improves the utilization rate of digital resources, but also exposes Chinese English learners to the first-hand English materials on this competitive global arena. For example, teachers and students are able to exchange their viewpoints and even chat online to practice their spoken English, and they can also upload their own learning materials to share what they have at hand. Through all this, students can widen their skills of literacy and communication on which they may depend in their future professional development.

Thirdly, Chinese-foreign teachers’

cooperative teaching method can be introduced into the traditional Chinese English class so as to strengthen EFL learners’ sense of experience. As has been indicated from the present study, loads of English learners in the Chinese-foreign cooperation program complain about the tedious English class atmosphere so that they tend to have lower participation in their class activities. To address this issue, we suggest that the following teaching method be used. In preparing their teaching materials, Chinese and foreign teachers can stay together and set their teaching aims and teaching content. After this, foreign teachers can be responsible for the introduction to the background knowledge and students’ pronunciation and Chinese teachers for the comparative instruction between Chinese culture and western culture. After class, Chinese and foreign teachers can co-assess their students’ class performance so that they would present an objective assessment on their learners (Gao, Xu, & Liu, 2018). The whole

learning experience will provide the

opportunities of communicating with foreign teachers for the students, and further stimulate our learners’ interest of exploring exotic cultures, thinking modes and rigorous academic integrity, which will be instrumental in

developing their life-long learning.

Fourthly, motivational regulated strategies play a pivotal role in EFL learners’ English learning (Xu & Gao, 2014) and they can fall into the following five divisions, including self-consequating, environmental control, mastery self-talk, performance self-talk and interest enhancement (Wolters, 1998). In teaching, teachers should encourage their students to motivate themselves, set appropriate goals, and develop their own interest. The priorities of teachers’ using such instruction method lie in guiding their students’ adaptation to the sustained strategies that can enhance their learning motivation in various contexts. Through this, students can have a clear goal in mind, effectively regulate their learning strategies, and then manage their study and entertainment time to the best of their ability. In this regard, motivational self-regulated strategies are strong weapons in their language learning.

Last but not least, special education research centers for the sustainable development are recommended to be established in Chinese universities. In China, a complete sequence of cultivating talents has not formed yet. In the higher learning institutions of China, students largely depend on themselves. That is, the autonomy in learning is of significance for their study. However, Chinese students have been severely influenced by the “test-oriented” education system since they were studying at their nursery schools. Because of this, the creativity is lacking in their education. Also,

there exist giant differences between

universities and senior high schools with reference to teaching methods and teaching contents. So it has become a thorny issue that is aligned with senior high school life and university life. A point worth mentioning is that the internationalized textbooks should be

introduced into such Chinese-foreign

cooperation programs. As Wang (2017) has put it, effective learning would not be sustained without sufficient comprehensible knowledge input.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE INQUIRY By way of a conclusion, theoretically speaking, this study enriches current research results of English learning motivation. In terms of practice, this study raises teachers’ awareness of “psychological demotivation” of English

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learning in college and urges them to make efforts to conduct interference in learning strategies among different English learning

groups. This study has also explored

“psychological demotivation” factors of students in a Chinese-foreign program of China through a questionnaire. Multi-factor variance analysis indicates that the lack of motivation in English learning is mainly owed to teacher-related factor, self-related factor and institution-related factor. This study also showcases that although factor dimensions of freshmen and sophomores are the same, focus of each item is diverse: freshmen place higher expectations of teachers, with the hope that they can acquire more language knowledge from teachers, while sophomores desire to actively participate in class activities and speak English in class. These findings are not exactly the same as the previous research results by other scholars. That is, the present study targets at “psychological demotivational” factors of English learning of different tested groups and makes a meticulous division of factors. In addition, this study shows that sophomores have more complaints about current textbooks, viewing that current textbooks fail to take their professional demand into account.

The above research results may provide several implications. To start with, English teachers in higher teaching institutions should improve their language competence and the level of their teaching, and design diversified and flexible class activities to boost students’ interest in learning English. In particular, with the accelerating pace of opening up of higher education and increasing internationalization level in China. The new era requires teachers to

arm themselves with global vision,

contemporary knowledge structure and be blessed with English level that can keep abreast with times (Wang, 2019). Furthermore, it is essential that the teachers should provide adequate learning guidance for students so that they can realize that acquiring English knowledge in college is not only from teachers, but from modern and diversified tools by themselves. Thirdly, teachers should offer targeted suggestions for freshmen who have just entered colleges. On the basis of knowing the present teaching situation of senior high schools, college teachers need well prepare in the effective docking of foreign language education in high school, thus making students understand

the big differences of foreign language teaching modes between colleges and high schools. By the same token, teachers should explain some practical learning methods to help students more quickly adapt to the learning life in colleges. Last but not least, EFL teachers should also attach importance to the mediating role of positive psychology. That is, teachers are supposed to motivate Chinese EFL learners’ intrinsic and potential motivation, persist in their autonomous learning and finally sustain their interest and self-confidence.

Finally, it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms of the research methodology and should be bettered at the future inquiries in two main ways. First, from a positivism perspective, the replicated studies should be conducted with a larger sample size for each of the two groups in the similar educational contexts. Considering the small sample size in the present study, individual differences may have masked its generalization that might have emerged in some other different teaching contexts. Furthermore, we also need more in-depth empirical studies using mixed

methodological research paradigm to

triangulate our research findings, so that some more valid and reliable research implications can be made.

Acknowledgements

The research findings are the part of Teaching Reform Project of Henan Province in 2017 and 2018 supported by The Department of Education of Henan Province P.R.C. and Education Sector of Henan University respectively _ “Research on a

Chinese-foreign Cooperation Program EFL

Students’ psychological demotivational Factors of Learning English and Their Self-regulated Strategies” (No. 2017SJGLX214) as well

“Research on Freshmen’s English

Comprehensive Ability” ( No. HDXJJG 2018-15).

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