The Influence of Blended Learning on English Language Learners’ Motivation in Higher Education in China

Abstract

Blended learning has become one of the major pedagogies of innovative approaches in modern education with the development of technology, and it is necessary to consider about the efficiency for this new type of learning. Based on analysis of cases and past researches, this article focuses on the influences in three areas that blended learning can affect the motivation on English language learners in higher education of China, which are motivation in intrinsic interest, peer socialization, and extrinsic management. There is more positive influence on students’ intrinsic interest because of the developing autonomy of learning in blended classes, but the drawback is the lack of preparation of students’ positive learning attitudes and habits to learn a foreign language actively by oneself. There is also more positive affect on peer socialization in blended learning, because students are able to have more opportunities to interact with peer friends and increase collaboration, but the possible harm is the lack of communication because of translation technology in language learning. Additionally, there is more negative influence in extrinsic management of educators because of the unfamiliarity of technology and insufficient preparation of both class organization and students’ diverse goals or motivation for this innovative teaching pedagogy and mixed learning environment. This theory-based article also includes limitation of the subjective recognition of motivation and lack of data collection or experiment. There is recommendation for future studies to discover in this area as well.