| The past three decades have witnessed the booming development of the study on language learning beliefs since its debut in 1980s,during which time the concentration of the study has undertaken a waving shift from identification and classification of learning beliefs,to the origin and nature of them with a divergence between being static and being dynamic,and further to its relationship with other influential factors,e.g.learning strategies,motivations,outcomes,autonomy,and anxiety.However,few empirical studies have ever been conducted in the context of mainland China towards English-major freshmen’s learning beliefs,let alone the longitudinal studies from the perspective of sociocultural theory(SCT).Hitherto,framed in Vygotsky’s SCT,by virtue of the questionnaire and interviews,this thesis is designed to keep track of 24 freshmen’s learning beliefs longitudinally during their first college year,set in an Intensive reading class at a language university in Beijing,to observe whether there exists a dynamic development of their learning beliefs,and then to further explore the factors that are likely to exert influence on the possible changes of students’ learning beliefs.The study revealed that these students’ learning beliefs presented a developmental tendency during their first college year,with a demonstration of some remarkable changes in their peripheral learning beliefs,especially in the aspect of learning strategies.However,as English majors,they still held a positive attitude towards English learning and some of their core learning beliefs remained stable after a year.Among all the influential factors,curriculum setting combined with teacher practice,teacher’s beliefs,self-identity,language proficiency,peers,tests,and self-expectations were spotted to play a role in their development of learning beliefs.Some implications were put forward for language teaching and language learning based on the major findings of this research. |
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