In psychology, students' learning motivation is generally divided into internal motivation and external motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation caused by learners' inherent interests, curiosity or achievement needs. It is an internal factor, which can be divided into three categories: (1) Intrinsic motivation based on knowledge, only for exploring new knowledge and improving knowledge level. (2) Achievement-oriented internal motivation is only to accomplish a certain task or goal. (3) Stimulating internal motivation is only aimed at the stimulation generated in the learning process, such as excitement or pleasure.

External motivation refers to the motivation inspired by reasons other than external rewards and punishments or fear of failing the exam. It is an external factor, which can be divided into three categories: (1) external law, which is the lowest type of internalized motivation and is completely determined by external factors. When the external cause disappears, it does not exist. (2) Self-discipline means that due to some external pressure, individuals take actions to turn the pressure into domestic demand and force themselves to implement it, such as studying hard under the influence of self-esteem. (3) Self-discipline, with the highest internal degree, means that learners internalize their personal valuable goals and take corresponding actions. For example, students feel the importance of reading and insist on practicing in a planned way. So how to guide, encourage and help students to cultivate and develop intrinsic motivation, so that they can transform the objective requirements of society and schools into their own learning motivation, and keep the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation vigorous, which runs through the whole university learning stage and extends to social service, which requires our college foreign language teachers to first understand the basic situation of college students' English learning motivation.