Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

The importance of interest was recognized in the late 19th century. Thinkers likeEbbinghaus (1885, 1964) and James (1890) acknowledged that interest made asignificant contribution to what people paid attention to and remembered. In the early20th century many scholars studied the important role which interest played inlearning and development. Dewey (1913) maintains that interest can facilitatelearning，improve understanding and stimulate effort as well as personal involvement.Few would argue with the conclusion that individualsdeep commitment or passionfor a domain of learning- what we have labeled as individual or personal interest- is apower force in their self-fulfillment or their growth to expertise. (Alexander, 1990;Dewey, 1913) Moreover, most would agree that under favorable conditions,situational interest can help to nurture subsequent learning or fuel the development ofmore enduring interest. (Mitchel, 1993; Schiefele, 1992)Interest is generally defined as a positive psychological state that is based on oremerges from person-activity interaction. (Chen et al. 2001) It is one of a number ofmotivation variables that have been researched about learner engagement and learningoutcomes. The psychological state of interest is described by Krapp et al. (1992) as aprocess involving increased attention, positive affect, concentration, and an increasedwillingness to leam. Interest is so important that teachers always actively try their bestto arouse studentslearning interest in their daily classroom teaching.

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1.2 Research Purpose and Significance

With the appearance and rapidly development of Task- Based LanguageTeaching (TBLT)，learning task is no more a strange term for both teachers andstudents. Although numbers of definitions of task exist, task can be generally definedas activities that are meaning-focused, outcome-evaluated and have some sorts ofreal-world relationship. (Foster& Skehan, 1996) And it is a fine estimate to declarethat the communication of meaning is the primary goal for any particular task.(Skehan，1996) Swain (1985，1995) suggests that output of the tasks serves to helplearners notice gaps in their linguistic knowledge and thus triggers both analyses ofinput and of their own existing internal resources. The implementation of learningtasks in the classroom can effectively stimulate studentsinterest in learning, while theinterest is the internal motivation to stimulate and maintain studentslearningbehavior, as well as an important factor which influences students，study initiative andenthusiasm.cThere are varieties of task types based on different classification criteria. Nevertheless, for the present purpose, task is classified into closed task and opentask according to loose level of the task structure and concrete level of task goal.(Brown，1991) Focuses on task-based situational interest, this thesis firstly aims tostudy what different influences do these two learning tasks have on learnerssituational interest and whether there are different effects when males and femalesconduct the tasks. Apart from this, this thesis also wants to figure out which Englishlearning task can activate studentssituational interest more and the correlationshipbetween dimensional sources and total situational interest.

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Task

With the appearance of the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in the 1980，s，task has become a quite familiar word in language teaching. It has aroused muchattention and lots of researches both in China and abroad since then. As for the definition of task, different scholars hold different opinions. Firstly, itrefers to all the various things that people undertake in the non-educationalenvironment or daily life. (Gong Yafu& Luo Shaoqian, 2003) Long (1985) points outthat  task is a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for somereward. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling outa form，buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation，etc. In other words,‘task，means all things people do in everyday life, at work，at play, and in between.However，when we talk about the task in foreign language teaching，it usually meansthe activities which reference the activities in real word and aim to produce somelanguage meaning. (Gong Yafu& Luo Shaoqian，2003)

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2.2 Situational Interest

Situational interest is another major factor that the author wants to study in thisresearch. It is defined as the appealing effect of an activity or learning task on anindividual, rather than the individuals personal preference for the activity (Hidi &Anderson, 1992). Situational interest is a kind of interest that depends on studentsperceptions of specific features that an activity can offer as they encounter it (Mitchell,1993). To put it in another way，it is a kind of interest which is generatedspontaneously by some specific stimuli, or under some certain conditions，such as taskinstructions or engaging text.Hence it is obvious that situational interest is spontaneous, transitory, andenvironmentally activated (Krapp et aL, 1992), which is different from the individualinterest that is activated internally and has enduring personal value.Mitchell (1993) claims that in learning, situational interest results from studentsrecognition of the appealing features associated with a specific learning task. It iswidely known tiiat interest plays a very important role in promoting studentslearning.Situational interest has been found to have unique short-term and long-termmotivational effects on the learners in the areas of mathematics, reading, and history.(Renninger et al?，1992) It has been considered as a powerful motivator that guideslearners to participate in learning. (Deci，1992) Situational interest appears to beespecially important in catching studentsattention, whereas personal interest may bemore important in holding it (Hidi & Bdrd, 1986; Mitchell, 1993).

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Chapter 3 Research Design........ 14

3.1 Research Questions...... 14

3.2 Subjects...... 14

3.3 Instruments...... 15

3.3.1 Questionnaire ......15

3.3.2 Interview...... 18

3.4 Research Procedures...... 18

Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Result...... 25

4.1 Analysis of the Questionnaire Results...... 25

4.2 Analysis of the Interview Results...... 31

4.2.1 Interviews with Students from Open Task...... 31

4.2.2 Interviews with Students from Closed Task......   33

4.3 Discussion ......34

Chapter 5 Findings and Implications ......38

5.1 Major Findings of the research...... 38

5.2 Pedagogical Implications...... 40

Chapter 5 Findings and Implications

5.1 Major Findings of the research

After the data analysis and discussion，the major findings are summarized asfollows:(1) Both the open learning task and closed learning task can arouse students，situational interest, yet their influences on the dimensions of situational interest aredifferent from each ottier.After analyzing the data from Table 4.1 about the descriptive statistics oflearnerssituational interest, we can safely come to the agreement that the open taskcan stimulate studentsexploration intention and challenge more than closed task,because the open task is，in general, more difficult than the closed one. (Brown，1991)And the statistics also imply that many English teachers prefer to assign open task totheir students. The novelty which is caused by open task locates at the bottom of allthe dimensions. On the contrary, the closed learning task，which in this study is atypical picture comparison one, influences studentsnovelty most. In addition, theclosed task can also catch learnersattention easio and make them feel moreenjoyable when they engage in this task.

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Conclusion

Although many researches on situational interest were conducted by the researchersin China, few researchers investigated situational interest triggered by learning task inEnglish class. In this thesis, the author takes the freshmen from International Economyand Trade major in Li Jiang College of Guangxi Normal University as subjects. Thestudy aims to understand tiie influences of open learning task and closed learning task onstudentssituational interest in college English class，so as to provide college Englishteachers with some suggestions when they conduct tasks in English classes, and improvetheir English classroom teaching. By means of qualitative and quantitative research, in the first place，we do find thatthe closed learning task and open task cause studentssituational interest in distinctway for the different task structures，goals and procedures. Open learning task can arousestudentsexploration intention to the greatest degree, followed by instant enjoyment,while closed learning task activates learnersnovelty most, followed by instantenjoyment.

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