2.1 Learning Motivation 2

2.2 Classification of rewards and its function 2

2.3 English learning theories 3

2.4 Pupils’ perception and psychological characteristics 4

3. Research Methods 5

3.1 Research subjects 5

3.2 Research instrument 5

3.3 Research procedural 5

4. Findings and Discussions 6

4.1 The Interview and Teachers’ Observation Part 6

4.2 The Results of Questionnaire and Pupils’ Observation Part 7

4.3 The Results of Data Analyzing 8

5. Conclusions 10

References 11

Appendix 12

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

Since the student-oriented teaching theory has been accepted increasingly by scholars and teachers, students’ psychology and perception has been paid attention to. What is more, the English learners are incline to be younger and younger. The new English curriculum( 2011) required that every student has to learn English since the grade three in primary school. For the young in primary school, they have their certain psychological and perception characteristics, for instance, they are filled with curiosity but without long time consistence; they are flexible but without enough knowledge. English is especially hard for the young to acquire it. Many scholars do some researches on how to improve learning ability of the second language. How to encourage students to learn independently and willingly has been the heated topic to be discussed. “Duck-stuffing” and high pressure type of teaching are no longer suitable for learners, more humanistic methods have been raised to stimulate and maintain inpidual’s confidence, interests and motivation of leaning. Rewards are used as routine in English classes. It is an efficient way to catch students’ attention and stimulate their interests. However, rewards-giving as an extrinsic reinforcer has its shortage as too much rewards-giving may distract learners attention and ruin their intrinsic motivation, which seems very crucial for every person’s self learning and life-long learning. 

1.2 Research questions

Rewards play an important role in the English class, but rewards-abuse can cause some problems. How to get balance on the issue of rewards and what kinds of rewards are suitable in English class is the main purpose of the paper. Some key questions will to be investigated in the paper as following:

1. What kinds of rewards are often used in primary English classes?What are the different characteristics  of the rewards?         

2. How are rewards used in the class and what are the effects of different rewards?

1.3 The significance of the study

The significance of the study is that it aims to research on class rewards from the perspective of practical vision and theoretical vision. For the practical aspect, as the reward-giving is an often used method in English class, it can develop pupils’ confidence, catch pupils’ attention and stimulate their interests. But the reward-abuse or inappropriate using of rewards may cause the attention- distraction and ruin pupils’ intrinsic motivation. With the resolving of above questions, the study will figure out what kinds of rewards are efficient, which can help teachers to adjust their rewards-giving methods and improve the English class management. For the theoretical perspective, in order to have a comprehensive picture of rewards-giving, the study combines three elements English learning (or SLA), motivation and pupils’ psychological and perception characteristics. After reading some research papers, there are many papers related to rewards-giving, some have referred to pupils, but seldom has ones also to combine with English class. From this aspect, the paper has its innovation.