This study aims to construct a model to explain Chinese college students’ psychological and cognitive processes underlying their demotivation to learn English. Grounded theory method and cognitive maps were creatively combined to analyze the interview data from 21 college students in China’s universities. This study found three paths underlying students’ demotivation to learn English: 1) the large discrepancy between students’ actual selves and their possible selves might firstly produce motivation for a short period but then could cause low self-efficacy and negative affects. The large discrepancies might also directly generate negative affects among college students; those different negative affects could lead to demotivation of English learning. 2) college students’ low ought-to selves could cause their low ideal selves and then demotivation of English learning; 3) demotivation to learn English might also associate with low value of English learning in college students’ minds. At the end of this research, some pedagogical implications are given based on those findings.

Demotivation is one of the important factors causing students’ failure in learning a language. To explore the psychological and cognitive factors causing college students’ demotivation to learn English in China’s universities and to investigate the relations among these internal factors, this study constructed a shopping cart model by applying grounded theory method and tested the model by using structural equation modeling. This study found three paths underlying students’ demotivation to learn English, originating from large discrepancy between students’ actual and required positioning of English learning, low required positioning of English learning and low value of English learning in students’ minds. Based on these findings, this study gave some pedagogical implications for English teaching.

Competences for conducting research is vitally important for college EFL teachers’ career development, but many college English teachers are demotivated in academic research. To investigate teachers’ motivation on academic activities, this study firstly explored motivational changes of college EFL teachers (mean age 37.39, SD 9.77) for conducting research in their teaching career, and then delved into the factors underlying their demotivation by sending questionnaires. In the end, several English teachers and officers managing research projects were interviewed to elicit solutions to overcome EFL teachers’ demotivation to conduct research. This study found that college EFL teachers had large possibilities to suffer from demotivation to conduct research. Exploratory factor analysis indicated five factors causing their demotivation, including weak research ability, negative emotions and attitudes, poor research surroundings, research management problems and insufficient resources. Thematic analysis demonstrated that ecological solutions should be taken by different stakeholders in EFL teachers’ working ecology, including universities, research communities, government, and publishers. This study problematized the static view on teachers’ demotivation to conduct research and provided some insights and implications for reasons and solutions for demotivation.

ESP classes are usually designed for college students after they finish EGP learning. Accordingly, ESP textbooks are used after they use the EGP ones. Logically, ESP textbooks should be lexically more sophisticated than EGP ones, because linguistic contents are also important concerns for ESP teaching, and ESP classes should also promote students’ language development in addition to their professional advancement. This research aims to compare lexical complexity between EGP and ESP textbooks used among college students. With lexical sophistication as an index for lexical complexity, this study found some ESP textbooks were lexically easier than the EGP ones in this study, which contrasts with input hypothesis. This implicates that ESP textbook writers should consider the contents of EGP textbooks when writing textbooks.