Domyei (1994) pided foreign language learning motivation into three levels: language level, learner lever and learning situation level。 Language level refers to the goal of learning。 It covers all the elements relevant to the target language, such as economy, politics, culture and so on, which will to a large extent influence inpiduals’ choices and certainty about their goals。 Learner level implies different personalities of learner, for instance, whether a learner is confident。 Learning situation level is the crucial part of this theory, which includes course-specific motivational component, teacher-specific motivational components and group-specific motivational components。 Course is the most important of these three in that it found on the components related with syllabus, curriculum arrangement, teaching materials, teaching methodology and so on。

Since 1980s, Chinese scholars have paid a huge amount of attention on foreign language learning motivation。 In China, most studies employ Gardner’s paradigm。 These studies are principally empirical studies on English learning motivation among university students in Chinese setting。 They highlight the relationship between motivation and second language proficiency, investigate the relations among the various components of motivation, and explore the relations among different learner factors。