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English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors

This study examined the motivation of Chinese mature students toward learning English. The participants in the study were ten Chinese mature learners, of whom four were English majors and six were non-English majors. Each underwent a semi-structured interview. Their responses were then coded and ana...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sun, Yu, Teo, Timothy, Wang, Tzu-Hua
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9137596/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35621432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs12050135
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author Sun, Yu
Teo, Timothy
Wang, Tzu-Hua
author_facet Sun, Yu
Teo, Timothy
Wang, Tzu-Hua
author_sort Sun, Yu
collection PubMed
description This study examined the motivation of Chinese mature students toward learning English. The participants in the study were ten Chinese mature learners, of whom four were English majors and six were non-English majors. Each underwent a semi-structured interview. Their responses were then coded and analyzed based on Matsuzaka-Carreira’s motivation framework. Furthermore, the Keyword Extraction and Link Terms techniques of PolyAnalyst(TM) were used for further analysis. The results showed that English majors tended to be goal-oriented, and non-English majors were more likely to be means-oriented. English majors were identified as having additional integrative motivation. The factors influencing the motivation of English majors were more diverse than those influencing their non-English major counterparts. The obvious distinction between the two groups was their attitude towards the target language and culture. These findings suggest that instruction for adults should be aligned with mature learners’ practical needs and individual characteristics.
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spelling pubmed-91375962022-05-28 English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors Sun, Yu Teo, Timothy Wang, Tzu-Hua Behav Sci (Basel) Article This study examined the motivation of Chinese mature students toward learning English. The participants in the study were ten Chinese mature learners, of whom four were English majors and six were non-English majors. Each underwent a semi-structured interview. Their responses were then coded and analyzed based on Matsuzaka-Carreira’s motivation framework. Furthermore, the Keyword Extraction and Link Terms techniques of PolyAnalyst(TM) were used for further analysis. The results showed that English majors tended to be goal-oriented, and non-English majors were more likely to be means-oriented. English majors were identified as having additional integrative motivation. The factors influencing the motivation of English majors were more diverse than those influencing their non-English major counterparts. The obvious distinction between the two groups was their attitude towards the target language and culture. These findings suggest that instruction for adults should be aligned with mature learners’ practical needs and individual characteristics. MDPI 2022-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9137596/ /pubmed/35621432 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs12050135 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sun, Yu
Teo, Timothy
Wang, Tzu-Hua
English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title_full English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title_fullStr English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title_full_unstemmed English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title_short English-Learning Motivation among Chinese Mature Learners: A Comparative Study of English and Non-English Majors
title_sort english-learning motivation among chinese mature learners: a comparative study of english and non-english majors
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9137596/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35621432
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs12050135
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