Introduction

Along with the growing impact of the Belt and Road Initiative, China is in the high demand of communication with other countries in various aspects (Liu,2019). English as a global language plays essential roles in many ways and oral English is especially highly needed in the cultural exchange and economic area. However, English teaching in the colleges in China generally cannot meet the high demand of the English spoken talents from the society (Wu,2014). Art major students tend to concentrate on their major as they are doing what they love and expect to success in the painting field in the future. Thus, art major students show very little willingness in oral English learning as they hardly see the connection between painting and English. Therefore, this study aims to discuss how to effectively stimulate art major students’ intrinsic motivation in learning oral English.

Background

Situation of College English Teaching

English is a compulsory course in the colleges the China. All majors of students have to take this course and pass the test so that they can be graduated with a degree. The current English teaching in colleges is still test-centered and teacher-centered (Zhao,2012). Although the importance of English learning has been acknowledged, and China's Ministry of Education (MOE) has pointed out that the college English teaching should put more focus on the listening and speaking skills development instead of emphasizing reading comprehension, the oral English teaching in the colleges is less satisfactory (Zhao,2012). College English teaching has gone through decades of reform and the English teachers have been encouraged to carry out various teaching approaches and methods in their practice to improve students’ speaking skills in English, and multimedia, pictures, videos, etc. are popularly used in the class (Liu,2019). Yet, the students’ performance in oral English hardly meets the expectation.

Situation of Art Major Students’ Oral English Learning

Art major students, different from the other majors in the college, the entrance requirements to the college are lower than the other majors. Two entrance examinations must be taken by the art major students: a grueling college entrance examination which is given every summer across the country, and painting; namely, culture test and major test. Majoring in art is very costly and the tuition fee for art major students in the colleges is also higher than the other majors that has to be paid. Many of the art major students come from wealthy families and parents are very supportive in their children’ learning and provide students with expensive smartphones, laptops, or some other advanced electric devices so that the students may have more access to broader knowledges. Hence, many of the art major students are not too worried if they may not find a satisfactory job in the future as they have a wealthy family background. Thus, the reality here is some art major students doing art because their culture score does not meet the requirement and they are not in the place of choosing other majors; some art majors doing art because they show great enthusiasm in painting and likely care about nothing else. In this case, art major students have very poor willingness to learn oral English as they view English and art are two very different majors.

Intrinsic Motivation

The Concept of Intrinsic Motivation

Motivation refers to the act of giving people reasons for doing something to achieve a particular goal. From the psychology perspective, motivation can be divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the driving force that leads to a certain behavior to satisfy the purpose and it is induced by the internal factors. Students’ intrinsic motivation such as students’ interest, desire and expectations for improving their skills in learning leads to learning autonomy. Intrinsic motivation is different from extrinsic motivation, yet they are closely associated. Extrinsic motivation is the opposite factors which come from the external environment that caused the intention to satisfy the inner driven. Ryan & Edward (2000) suggested that intrinsic motivation is the key for students to desire to acquire knowledges, however, extrinsic motivation can also be transferred into intrinsic motivation within the guidance of teacher or the relevant parties.

The Connection between Intrinsic Motivation and Language Learning

Intrinsic motivation is a very important internal factor that has profoundly influence on students’ second language acquisition. Zhang (2021) suggested that there are two kinds of factors that affecting students’ second language acquisition, which are internal factors and external factors. Internal factors such as students’ attitude, motivation and personality are considered as the individual difference. When teacher cultivates students in accordance with the individual difference, the internal factors shall be taken into consideration. The affect that the internal factors has towards second language acquisition mainly refers to the students’ internal physiological and psychological mechanisms’ reaction towards second language acquisition. Study has shown that the intrinsic motivation promotes students to engage in the learning activities in class, which enables students to commit in learning actively and spontaneously (Zhang,2021). It is commonly acknowledged that intrinsic motivation is one of the most important and essential factors that influence students’ English proficiency or language achievements (Ryan & Edward,2000). It is important for the teacher to realize the role of intrinsic motivation in students’ oral English learning and make a full use of it.

Stimulation of Intrinsic Motivation in Art Major Students’ Oral English Learning

Various teaching methods are encouraged to applied in the oral English teaching, to explore the possibility of teaching art students’ oral English in accordance with their passion. A few practical and possible ways to stimulate art students’ intrinsic motivation in oral English learning are introduced below.

Application of Authentic Video

With the rapid development of science and technology, advanced teaching technologies are equipped in each classroom such as computer and visualizer in the colleges. Wi-Fi is available throughout the campus and it also can be accessed in the classroom. Many innovations have been brought into education, especially in language teaching. Wang (2015) suggested that teachers should create various learning opportunities for students so that the learning opportunities can be maximized. Language teachers, especially the English language teachers are using authentic videos in the classroom to create a better teaching-learning platform, which may facilitate the teaching and learning process as well as encourage students to achieve learning autonomy and interaction (Wang,2015).

Authentic video is consisted of a series pictures and conversations, which is a more vivid expression of language and is indeed an effective way to add diversity to the teaching method to create a better language teaching-learning platform (Sherman,2003). It puts students in the real situation to experience how do people communicate in English naturally. Most importantly, authentic video adds more fun to the teaching and the students would be more interested in the class activities. The advantages of using authentic video in the language teaching has been studies and proved, the more important thing is for the teachers to use the authentic video wisely to meet the teaching objectives.

Cultivation of Students’ Perception of Oral English Learning

If the teacher gets students to align their beliefs or values with oral English learning, the students’ intrinsic motivation would be improved, and the teaching and learning process would be facilitated. Firstly, the teacher needs to build a connection between oral English learning and students’ major so that the importance of oral English learning can be acknowledged. A common question that shared by most of the art students is: what is the use to learn oral English? To improve the intrinsic motivation, the art students need to realize why they need to strive hard for oral English learning. Secondly, the teacher needs to guide students to see a bigger world that oral English could lead them to. For instance, the students have a chance to meet or communicate with some of the art masters or experts around the world who are invited to the college, a fluent oral English may give the students’ the lifetime opportunities to learn from the best, exchanging the art experiences with the experts and it may help students’ art upgrade to a higher level or add more possibilities to the fine job offers. Thus, learning with a purpose helps students to set goals with intrinsic motivation in English learning. It is important for the teachers to help the students to see the fluent oral English as a shiny golden ticket which leads to more opportunities and possibilities in the future.

Combination of Art Major with Oral English Teaching

In order to stimulate students’ intrinsic motivation in learning oral English, students’ major can be blend in the language teaching. Art students major in painting mostly because their interest is in painting, in this case, if their interest can be extended further to oral English learning, the learning result shall be improved. For instance, if the teaching objective in a lesson is for students to talk about their favorite season, the teacher could set up a task that requires students to make a poster that drawing the characteristics of their favorite season or things that best represent the season, and list out the key features in English about this season beside so that later the students could use the poster to make a presentation to talk about the season. Thus, students are scaffolding and learning English while doing painting that they love, which would deepen students’ memory of the usage of English and it would be easier for the students to talk in English well prepared.

Conclusion

The current English teaching in the colleges in China is test-centered, art students’ goal of learning English mainly is to pass the exam to get a degree. The college English teaching objectives are mainly focusing on reading and writing, oral English teaching hasn’t received much attention. Hence, art students are demotivated to develop their skills in oral English, which means the intrinsic motivation in learning oral English is extremely low. However, art students need to improve their oral English skills as the world is in a high demand of good English-speaking talents. The college English teachers need to be aware of the importance of students’ intrinsic motivation in oral English learning. Also, although intrinsic motivation is a stronger motivator than extrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation can affect intrinsic motivation easily or even replace it. The teacher needs to aware what certain factors can be the driving force from the external environment and make the utmost of those factors to transfer the extrinsic motivation into intrinsic motivation to drive students to motivate themselves.

参考文献：

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