An Investigation On Learning Beliefs Of English Minor Students

This paper was undertaken to find out the learning beliefs held by English minor stu-dents. 300 English minor students in Huazhong University of science and technology were involved in this investigation. This study combined qualitative and quantitative method by employing questionnaire and interview to find out: 1) the status quo of learning beliefs of English minor students; 2) whether the students of different gender and of different Eng-lish levels have different learning beliefs; and 3) what affect the learning beliefs that the subject held? The major findings are as follows:Firstly, most of the English minor students believe the language aptitude concerning innate language aptitude, but have different beliefs about language aptitude concerning genderSecondly, more English minor students feel English is a language with intermediate difficulty and the students in different English proficiency have different learning confi-dence.Thirdly, nearly half of the English minor students view that the most important part of English learning is vocabulary and most of them emphasize the importance of culture background and learning strategies.Fourthly, most of the subjects learn English for instrumental motivation and there are three ways that affect English minor students'learning beliefs: students'observation, their previous learning experience and what the teachers told them in class.On the basis of the major findings, implications for English teaching and learning are given:Teachers should help learners to establish correct and positive ideas towards language learning and avoid the incorrect and negative opinions. Besides, teachers are supposed to bring real-life situations to the class. On the other hand, learners should reflect their be-liefs consciously and develop autonomy in learning.