The English Learning Motivation And Strategy Of The First Year English Students, Faculty Of Linguistics And Humanities, Savannakhet University (SKU), Academic Year 2020-2021

This study aimed to investigate English students on: 1) the factors influencing male and female students in learning English, 2) the dominant factors influencing male and female students in learning English, 3) the differences between factors influencing male and female students in learning English, 4) the types of learning strategies used by male and female students, 5) the dominant types of learning strategies used by male and female students, 6) the differences between learning strategies used by male and female students. This study was qualitative research. The setting of this research was conducted at English Department, Faculty of Linguistics and Humanities, Savannakhet University (SKU) in academic year 2020-2021. The researcher selected 50 English students (25 males and 25 females). The researcher focused on the first year students, semester II. To collect the data, he used two instruments namely questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire of learning motivation was adapted from the theories of Ur (1996), and Gage and Berliner (1984). The questionnaire of learning strategies was adapted from the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire model of Oxford (1990), these instruments used to investigate students’ opinions about learning motivation (agree or disagree) and learning strategies (use or don’t use). The interview was conducted after the results of the questionnaire already. It used to investigate students’ opinions and techniques in both learning motivation and strategies. The technique analyzing data was followed by the three steps of interactive model analysis of Miles and Huberman (1984) namely data reduction, data display, and data conclusion or verification. The results of this study showed that: 1) the male and female students agreed the seven types of learning motivation are factors motivated them in learning English language namely interest, need, hobby, goal, teacher, parents, and environment. 2) the dominant factors influencing male students are interest and teacher and the dominant factors influencing female students are interest. 3) the different factors agreed by male and female students are: based on the frequency and percentage of male students, they agreed that interest, teacher, need, goal, environment, parents, and hobby. On the other hand, female students agreed that interest, teacher, goal, need, environment, parents, and hobby. 4) male and female students used six types of learning strategies. They applied all types of learning strategies in their learning English namely memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies. 5) the dominant types of learning strategies applied by male students are cognitive strategies and the dominant types of learning strategies employed by female students are memory strategies. 6) the different types of learning strategies used by male and female students are: based on the frequency and percentage of male students. They used cognitive strategies, memory strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, social strategies, and affective strategies. On the other hand, the female students applied memory strategies, cognitive strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, social strategies, compensation strategies, and affective strategies. Based on the results, it can be revealed that motivation and learning strategies are very important for students in learning English. Hopefully, the results can be useful to teachers for aware the students’ motivation in learning English and the learning strategies. Additionally, students can apply suitable strategies for their learning effectively. Keywords: English students, learning motivation, and learning strategies