Abstract
Why do senior high students in Taiwan learn English? How come many of them whoare not interested in English still try to memorize English vocabulary all the time? Due to globalization, the status of English becomes different from that of other languages. Moreover, according to the past studies of cultural psychology, the learning motivation of Chinese students isnot only universal but also culturally specific. Therefore, motivational self system of second language (L2), self-determination theory and some western theories may hardly explain Taiwanese students’ English learning motivations and behaviors. The present study adopted the perspectives of the theoretical framework of Chinese achievement goals to investigate high school students’ learning motivations of English. Scales were developed to measure multiple English learning motivations and learning behaviors of in- and out-class. Participants included 334 senior high students (168 males, 156 females) from 3 senior high schools. The results of path analysis indicated that (1) “cultural interest” waspositivelycorrelatedwith out-class learning behavior,butnotwithin-class learning behavior; (2) “intrinsic motivation” wasbothpositivelycorrelatedwithin-and out-class learning behavior;(3) “role obligation” and “exam orientation” were positively correlatedwith in-class learning behavior; (4) “ideal L2 self” could predict neither in- classnor out-class learning behavior; (5)“ought-to L2 self”wasnegativelycorrelatedwith in-class learning behavior, and(6) in-and out-class learning behaviorwere positively correlatedwith academic achievement. These results show that there are multiple English learning motivations among Taiwanese high school students and some motivations may be culturally salient.