A Study Of Learner Beliefs And Learning Strategies Held By The Minority Nationality English-major Undergraduates In The Chinese EFL Context

Language learning outcomes are influenced by a great number of factors, among which learner beliefs and learning strategies are the two most important factors. Learner beliefs have a great impact on learners' choice of learning strategies, and conversely, use of learning strategy will reflect learner beliefs. These two factors combine to exert considerable influence on learners' achievement and learning efficiency.Studies of learner beliefs and learning strategies have been carried out by many scholars in both ESL and EFL contexts in the field of linguistics(for example, O'Malley & Chamot 1990; Oxford 1990; Wen 1996; Wen & Johnson 1997). However, there is still a paucity of studies done on the Chinese minority nationality learners of English. China is a country with 56 nationalities. The modernization and prosperity of the minority nationalities are an essential part of the country's development and mainly decided by its development in education. In Yunnan Province, this issue is even more prominent. With the policy of reform and opening to the outside world being carried out, Yunnan is now drawing a lot more attention from home and abroad and there is a growing need for comprehensive talents. Therefore, EFL education has become a crucial factor in the development in an all-round way of this area.Using a questionnaire survey, the present author attempted to investigate learner beliefs and learning strategies held by the minority nationality English-major undergraduates in Yunnan University for Nationalities (YUN). The present study reported in this thesis has four broad objectives: (1) To investigate what learner beliefs are commonly held by the Chinese minority nationality English-major undergraduates; (2)To conclude the learning strategies generally employed by the learners; (3)To illustrate what learner beliefs and learning strategies are characteristics of these learners and make comparisons with relevant previous studies; (4)To analyze the interrelation between learner beliefs and learning strategies in this study, and how the two sets of variables correlate learners' English achievement.Subjects were chosen from 16 intact classes from Grade 2000 to Grade 2003, School of Foreign Languages, YUN. They were non-native English-major undergraduates. The total number of participants is 510 including 17 nationalities from Yunnan, Guangxi and GuizhouProvinces. The basic research instrument for the current study was a Survey Questionnaire adapted from Oxford's (1990) and Wen's (1996). It consists of three parts. The first part is concerned with the personal background of the subjects. The second part includes 26 items about learner beliefs of language learning, to which subjects were asked to respond on a 3-point scale ranging from 1 (disagreement) to 3 (agreement). The third part comprises 45 statements about learning strategies employed in language learning, to which subjects are also asked to respond on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never or almost never true of me) to 5 (always or almost always true of me). 510 questionnaires were given out and 502 retrieved in the formal class period. The results of the questionnaires were subjected to statistical tests of reliability and significance using SPSS 11.5.The major findings of the study could be summarized as follows:(1) The minority nationality learners hold an extensive variety of beliefs on attribution, management, the nature of language learning, learning and communication and use of mother tongue in English learning.(2) In the whole, a majority of the learners employ management strategies. They use repeated memory strategies and risk-taking strategies in learning words but make the least frequent use of selective memory and associative memory, and prefer to "top-down" reading style. Half of the learners employ mother-tongue-avoidance strategies and practise on receptive skills more actively than productive skills. They avoid employing communicative strategy and risk-taking strategies in speaking and writing as much as possible or comparing th...