Universal Journal of Educational Research 7(10A): 54-59, 2019 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2019.071710 Relationship between the Chinese Language Classroom Environment and Students' Motivation to Learn Mandarin in Malaysia P. K. Veloo 1,* , Wang Yang 1 , Gurnam Kaur 1 , Parmjit Singh 2 1 Faculty of Education, SEGi University, Malaysia 2 Faculty of Education, MARA University of Technology, Malaysia Received June 28, 2019; Revised September 5, 2019; Accepted September 12, 2019 Copyright©2019 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Associations between the nature of Mandarin Classroom Environments and Malaysian Chinese Independent High school students' motivation to learn Mandarin was investigated using a perceptual measure approach. A sample of 460 grade 8 students from 4 Independent Chinese High schools were involved in the study. The Mandarin Classroom Environment Inventory (CLCEI) (Chua, 2004) was used to investigate teachers' and students' perceptions towards their Mandarin classroom learning environments in six dimensions, namely 'Student Cohesiveness', 'Teacher Support', 'Involvement', 'Cooperation', 'Task Orientation' and 'Equity'. Students' motivation to learn Mandarin was examined using the Chinese Language Motivation Scale (CLMOTS) (Soh, 1993). Two statistical procedures, simple correlational analysis and multiple regression analysis, were used to examine the relationships between students' motivation to learn Mandarin and the nature of their Mandarin classroom learning environments. The results show that students' motivation to learn Mandarin was positively correlated with all the six learning environment dimensions. Multiple regression analysis show that students' motivation to learn Mandarin was associated with three dimensions of the learning environments, 'Teacher Support', 'Task Orientation', and Equity. Task Orientation had the most significant association with students' motivation to learn Mandarin. Keywords Classroom Learning Environment, Motivation, Chinese Language, Task Orientation 1. Introduction and Background Students have spent close to 15,000 hours in classrooms by the time they complete high school (Fraser, 2002; Velayutham, 2012). Therefore what happens within these classrooms, such as the nature of the teaching and learning and the interactions experienced by students, are likely to have a profound impact on students’ outcomes. Traditionally school effects research has tended to rely heavily on the assessment of subject related academic achievement and other learning outcomes (Fraser, 2007). Academic factors alone do not provide a complete picture of the overall academic process that occurs in the classroom. Many things that happen in the classroom, and most importantly the atmosphere the teacher creates during the lesson impacts on how students learn. Classroom learning environment is an important educational area that has received much attention from educational researchers. Despite its importance, educators tend to rely heavily on achievement and other outcomes which do not provide a complete picture of the educational processes within the classroom (Fraser, 2002). The field of leaning environment research focuses on classroom life, usually from the students’ perspective (Fraser, 2007). Research conducted over the past 40 years has consistently shown that the quality of the classroom learning environment in schools is an important determinant of students’ learning engagement (Fraser, 2007). That is, students are likely to learn better when they perceive their classroom learning environment positively. According to Hanrahan (2002), classroom dynamics can be influential in alienating students even before they have a chance to begin to engage with concepts taught in that classroom. Malaysia is a multiracial country and has a unique system of education. Parents who send their children to public primary schools may choose from among three languages as the medium of instruction, namely Malay, Mandarin or Tamil. The medium of instruction at public CITE THIS PAPER [1] P. K. Veloo , Wang Yang , Gurnam Kaur , Parmjit Singh , "Relationship between the Chinese Language Classroom Environment and Students' Motivation to Learn Mandarin in Malaysia," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 7, No. 10A, pp. 54 - 59, 2019. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2019.071710.