A Study On The Learning Experience Of Chinese Successful English Learners

In the recent decades, together with the development and achievement, many problems have arisen in English teaching in China. The situation is basically characterized as"time-consuming"and"low-efficiency". English teaching in China has long been following the imported English teaching theories and teaching methods to a great extent, whereas the unique Chinese setting and characteristics of Chinese English learners are sometimes ignored. In fact, a great number of successful foreign language learners have emerged in the process of foreign language education development. It is pains-worthy to study and analyze their experience. Only by doing so, plus adopting the sound methods from Chinese traditional foreign language teaching practice, can we find out the foreign language learning approaches which suit the Chinese the best as well as the"short-cut"for foreign language teaching.Studies on good language learners are an important part in foreign language teaching and learning research. From the mid-1970s, detailed studies have been done in this field by Rubin (1975), Naiman et al. (1978), Ellis (1994), etc. From the 1980s, studies on successful English learners have been carried out in succession in China. Gui Shichun (1985) listed the characteristics of good language learners in the Chinese situation; Wen Qiufang (1995) compared the choice of language learning strategies between one successful and another less successful college English major; Fu Zheng (2001) provided a model on the essential factors of successful language learners; Han and Lin (2000), Lu (2002), etc. did case studies on some successful English learners. However, most studies were based on overseas learning strategy theories whereas few basic researches have been done on Chinese learners'learning experience. There are some scattered descriptions in various articles and books, but no systematic summary and theoretical interpretation.This thesis is committed to the foundation research of Chinese successful English learners. In phase 1 of the research, the major characteristics of Chinese successful English learners of the elder generation were concluded and summarized, based on the retrospective articles by the reputed English experts and scholars in two volumes of Recollections of Foreign Language Education. In phase 2 of the research, a questionnaire was designed according to the results from phase 1, and then distributed to contemporary successful English learners composed of English-major graduates and postgraduates to investigate their general learning approaches. After data collection, analysis and comparison, the final result was produced, i.e. the shared characteristics in the learning process of Chinese successful English learners as a whole. They are: love and great interest in English; great efforts in English study; reading in large amounts, esp. literature works; writing regularly; adopting traditional learning approaches like reading aloud; laying emphasis on grammar study and attention to vocabulary study; frequent use of dictionaries esp. English-English dictionaries as a tool in English learning.The findings of the research serve not only as a reference for Chinese English teachers and learners, but as an essential foundation and support for the exploration of foreign language teaching theories with Chinese characteristics. The thesis discusses the implications in the aspects of motivation cultivation, strategy training, and curriculum enhancement in teaching reading, writing, grammar, etc. The limitations of the study are explained and suggestions for future research are raised at the end of the thesis.