The present study examined the relations between three motivational variables, i.e. academic self-efficacy, task importance, and interest with three types of learning behaviours, i.e. class engagement, metacognitive self-regulation, and avoidance coping with 1954 secondary students in Singapore. Positive correlations were found between the three motivational variables, class engagement and metacognitive self-regulation, whereas negative correlations were found between the three motivational variables and avoidance coping. Multiple regression analysis results showed that academic self-efficacy, interest and task importance all significantly predicted class engagement. However, only academic self-efficacy and interest significantly predicted metacognitive self-regulation and avoidance coping, but not task importance. The results were similar for both boys and girls. These findings suggest that academic self-efficacy and interest have a more desirable motivational function in comparison with task importance, especially when students face challenging tasks in learning English. Important implications for teaching are discussed.