The Study On Chinese Learners' Sociopsychological Environment In The Foreign Language Classrooms

Language learning always occurs in a certain context or environment. Yet learning environment is a very complex system which determines everything that influences learning activities and learning effect.There is no natural English learning environment for Chinese learners. As a foreign language, English classroom is the main and the only channel for learners to get language input. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for both language teachers and learners in China to make best use of the classroom time. It is especially important for English teachers to create a positive and favorable classroom environment, thus to lead students'extracurricular learning.Learning environment research has become a very hot subject under research abroad in the field of Educational Sociology, Educational Psychology and Science Education. They mainly focus on the study of the sociopsychological differences between teachers and students'perceptions of the same classroom environment. The relationship between students'perception and their academic achievement is another focus of the research in recent years. All researchers are interested in designing various kinds of research instruments which are of high reliability and validity after testing. Thus, followers can learn and apply such instruments into their own classroom.But learning environment research is still new in China. Most of the educational scholars in China are still confined to reviewing what has already been done overseas. Very few discuss the concept and structure of learning environment. Large-scale learning environment research is still nowhere to see in China.Though English teaching scholars and teachers have done quite a lot of research both theoretically and empirically for the purpose of improving teaching quality in English classrooms, most of the research is around the task of teaching which focuses on teaching material and methods. Their research inclusively ignores not only various elements which comprise foreign language classroom environment but also the influences psychological perceptions and social relationship have on learners in the classroom. These problems mainly reflect on the evaluation of foreign language teaching quality. It is still a common phenomenon in English classroom to concentrate on the teaching of linguistic knowledge while ignoring the cultivation of linguistic competence. What's more, there is no empirical study from learners'outer aspects in China from the perspective of second language acquisition research.By learning from the foreign scholars, we conducted a large-scale investigation into the English classroom atmosphere of some Chinese key universities. From such research, we intend to explore both positive and negative elements influence the acquisition of foreign language in Chinese university classrooms. Thus we can establish a new and wide applicable standard for the evaluation of foreign language classrooms in China which finally lead us to put forward a completely new theoretical model for foreign language teaching in the classroom. This is of great theoretical and practical significance in deepening our research in the field of foreign language acquisition and to make the evaluation standard of our teaching quality more complete and rational.By combining quantitative and qualitative methods and learning from the foreign scholars, we are able to be the first in China to design an inventory which is used to investigate the English language classrooms for non-English majors in Chinese university. Our target subjects include both undergraduates and postgraduates and their teachers. The surveyed English language classrooms include Oral English classrooms, reading classrooms and comprehensive classrooms. The inventory has got three versions: student version and teacher's version in Chinese and also an English version for foreign teachers. We survey about 2200 university students and 60 teachers who are from 10 different universities in China. Among the subjects we surveyed, we have got about 600 postgraduates and 20 foreign teachers. Data obtained from the survey were processed in SPSS 13.0. The results of the data were used as the basis of the qualitative study by means of interviews and classroom observation and to explain patterns and differences in mean scale in each subgroup. We first analyzed the reliability and validity of inventory which is quite satisfactory. Then by using variance analysis and Independent T-test, we got to know the perception differences towards the same classroom environment between teachers and students, male and female, better students and poorer students. Finally, using bivariate correlation and multi-regressional analysis between students'perceptions toward classroom environment and their academic achievement a, we are able to find out the positive and negative elements in the present Chinese foreign language classroom environment which can further check the research results of our foreign counterparts.The research results indicate that at least 8 factors are in our prediction out of the nine factors we included in Chinese College and University Foreign Language Classroom Environment Inventory (CCUFLCEI). Besides, the reliability of the inventory reached above 0.95 and the load of each item reached 0.50 and above while the variance is above 56% which clearly shows that the inventory we designed and applied in the investigation of Chinese university foreign language classroom environment is highly reliable and valid and thus can be used widely in the assessment of university classroom environment and evaluation of teaching quality. Thus, the standard for the assessment of various kind of Chinese classroom environment is achieved.Secondly, the results of our research also show that students'academic achievement is correlated with four factors which are:"teachers'support","classroom involvement","student responsibility"and"task orientation". Factors which are related highly with students oral test achievement are"teacher support"and"classroom involvement"while"student responsibility"and"task orientation"is closely related to students'reading achievement results. Therefore, we could infer that the positive elements we language teachers are encouraged to create in the foreign language classrooms include the four aspects above. In another words, foreign language teachers should try in every way to enhance their support to their students, to encourage students to be involved as much as possible in classroom activities, to treat students equally and improve the cohesiveness among classmates and to make students realize the importance of learning tasks, thus to have right orientation towards language tasks.Finally, in terms of the research results we got from both quantitative and qualitative study, we attempted to establish a new theoretical model for foreign language teaching in Chinese colleges and universities. This new model includes four elements:1) to cultivate and maintain students'interests in language learning;2) to provide enough authentic target language input;3) to help students make full use of the learning strategies which benefit their foreign language learning; and4) to help students to overcome learning difficulties.What's more, successful language learning requires co-effort of in-class and out-class learning. Therefore, language teachers not only need to create a favorable classroom learning environment but also need to give students support and guidance for their extracurricular study so as to make students feel that they can get the support from teachers wherever they need and thus their learning problems can be solved right in time and participation in language learning reaches the peak and interests in learning keeps high forever.