CYUT Students'' Attitudes and Motivation toward Native Language and Foreign Language as a Medium of Instruction in English Writing Classes

• Main Authors: Hsiao-yi Huang, 黃曉憶
• Other Authors: Chin-yin Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/22346113399362164871

碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 應用外語研究所 === 95 === The choice of whether to use students’ native language (NL) or not in the foreign language (FL) classroom raises controversial debates among English teachers. The purpose of this study is to reveal students’ attitudes and motivation toward English writing and its instructional languages. A total of 215 students in the department of Applied Foreign Languages (AFL) at Chaoyang University of Technology (CYUT) participate in the study. English Writing Attitude Scale (EWAS), English Writing Motivation Scale (EWMS), NL & FL Instruction Attitude Scale (NFIAS), and the Background Information (BI) questionnaire are used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson product-moment correlation, One-way ANOVA are used to analyze data at p .05 level. The major findings are as follows: CYUT students possess positive attitudes toward English writing; students’ attitudes and motivation are moderately correlated, but they are not correlated to their English writing performance; no significant difference of students’ performance is found among the participants with varying levels of motivation; the use of the NL is appropriate in explaining grammar aspect, group discussion and brainstorming; it is suggested to use the NL only within 25% of the class time otherwise students’ opportunities for using the target language will be lessened; the individual background variables have no strong effect on the results. Implications are derived from research findings.