A Study On Beliefs About Language Learning Of Senior Middle School Students

What do the senior middle school students believe about language learning? Is there a difference in beliefs about language learning between high achievers and low achievers? The present study addresses these two questions by investigating 112 senior one students from Nanchang Foreign Language Middle School. In order to examine the differences of Language Learning Beliefs between high- and low-achievers, all the participants were further divided into high English achievers and low English achievers with their middle-term examination.In this study, Horwitz's(1987) Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) was administered to collect information on language learners' beliefs. The Questionnaire was translated into Chinese and modified for the current study. Statistical analyses comprised both descriptive and inferential ones. In addition independent sample t-tests were performed to compare significant differences of responses for the high achievers with those for the low achievers for each statement.After the data analysis, substantial findings came to light. First of all, this study gained extensive information about what the senior middle school students perceived about their English learning. The students reported holding a variety of beliefs about language learning. The overwhelmingly majority of the respondents endorsed the importance of excellent accent. Substantial students were very confident about their ability to learn English. They believed that everyone can learn to speak a foreign language and they would ultimately learn to speak English very well. They also agreed that if they learned to speak English very well, it would help them get a good job. It showed that they had strong instrumental motivation. At the same time, they endorsed that culture knowledge about the English-speaking countries can facilitate their English study. On the other hand, they disagreed that learning a foreign language is mostly a matter of learning a lot of grammar rules or translating from Chinese.Secondly, the study also ascertained the significant differences of language learning beliefs on part of high- and low-achievers. It revealed that the high-achievers had more confidence in their ability to learn English and emphasized more the necessity of knowing about English-speaking countries and their culture. Moreover they were more aware of the importance of communication and paid more attention to the fluency than accuracy. In contrast, low-achievers seemed to have stronger instrumental motivation...