Extroversion/Introversion And English Achievement Of Tertiary-Level English Majors In A Chinese Context

This thesis reports a study in a Chinese context of extroversion/introversion and its relationship to English achievement of tertiary-level English majors. The data on personality type were collected through an Extroversion/Introversion Questionnaire, which was based on Eysenck Personality Inventory and was administered to 57 second-year English majors in Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. The participants' English achievement was established by their scores on TEM 4, a nation-wide standardized English proficiency test taken on completion of their two-year intensive English program, the first part of their four-year BA degree. The relationship between extroversion/introversion and achievement was then examined through SPSS 10.0.It was found that when the total scores in TEM 4 were concerned, the learners who were midway between extroversion and introversion performed best, and the introverted learners took the second place while the extroverted ones were the least proficient. When their achievement in each part of TEM 4 was taken into consideration, the participants with different personality types were equally proficient in Writing, and there were no significant differences in Dictation, Listening Comprehension and Cloze; however, great differences could be found in Grammar and Vocabulary, and Reading.Furthermore, the study also attempted to find the differences relating to extroversion/introversion traits between relatively successful learners and unsuccessful learners. The statistics showed that significant differences did exist between them in two traits: successful learners were graded much lower than unsuccessful learners in risk-taking and impulsiveness.The study adopts both qualitative and quantitative research to explore extroversion/introversion and English achievement of tertiary-level English majors in a Chinese context. The researcher intends to gather more evidence to support the hypothesis on which personality factors facilitate or inhibit foreign/second language learning, especially in a Chinese context.Based on the investigation, the recommendations to both English teachers and English learners are presented.