On the relationship between Motivation and EFL learners’ Language Learning Strategy Uses

Although there are some studies dealing with motivation and language learning strategy, they investigate motivation in traditional way. That is the continuum of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is the focus of such studies (Morianm, 2008; Rahimi Domakani, Rohani & Akbari, 2012; Zarei & Elekaei, 2013). This research views motivation from self-determination theory by which five types of motivation are presented: Amotivation, External Regulation, Introjected Regulation, Identified Regulation and Intrinsic Motivation. Self-determination theory roots in the cognitive-situated period (during the 1990s)—characterized by work drawing on cognitive theories in educational psychology. During the same period, by the emergence of the works on learning strategies that was inspired by the works of Rubin and Stern in the mid 1970s and shaped by the efforts of Omally and Chamot from 1982 to 1990, the areas in language learning and teaching rendered great changes and so the roles and responsibilities of individuals were tended to be more important (Brown, 2000). Ellis (1994) emphasizes on the mediating role of strategy between learners and situational factors and learning outcomes. He defined learning strategy as the particular approaches or techniques that learners employ to try to learn an L2 (1997, p. 76-77). Mainly, strategy is regarded as tactic or technique by which learners can be devised. Accordingly different classification of language learning strategies came into existence. Oxford (1990) classified the general learning strategies into two main categories: direct (cognitive, memory and compensation) and indirect (metacognitive, affective, social). The article aims to find the possible relationship between language learning strategy uses and motivation. For such purpose 49 Chinese EFL learners were to answer Strategy Inventory for Language Learning and Language Learning Orientations Scale respectively proposed by Oxford (1990) and Noels, Pelletier, Clément and Vallerand (2000). By running Pearson correlation, the results show that there is a significant relationship between language learning strategy use and EFL learners’ motivation. The result also shows that the most frequent strategies used by Chinese EFL are respectively memory, affective, social, cognitive, compensation, and metacognitive strategies. Also the learners were highly motivated respectively by identified regulation, intrinsic motivation (knowledge), external regulation, intrinsic motivation (accomplishment), intrinsic motivation (stimulation), introjected regulation, and amotivation.