A Study on Motivational Regulation Strategies in English Acquisition of Junior English Majors

Abstract

A number of previous studies in second language acquisition research motivational strategies in China, but there are scant experimental studies focusing on the group of English majors. The present study investigates motivational regulation strategies and the connections between English performance and the strategies. Participants were 107 junior English majors in Guangdong province in China. In this study, a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview are used to collect data. The main findings of this research include seven strategies: interest enhancement, performance self-talk, mastery self-talk, self-rewards, negative-based incentive, volitional control, and self-efficacy. From the codes of interview contexts, activation of digital media and multimedia needs to be seen as a useful strategy. What’s more, the results show that only negative-based incentives and self-efficacy enhancement have a significant difference in English performance. The findings can provide teachers and students with a deeper understanding of the new use of strategies in learning English as a second language acquisition.