A Survey Study Of Beliefs About English Language Learning Held By Third-Year English Majors In SWPU

Among learner variables, learners' beliefs which has a profound influence on learning behaviors and then learning outcomes, has been given an increasing detrimental role in language learning.Recognizing the need to help language learners reflect upon and refine their beliefs about English language learning, the author conducted the current study, with Beliefs About English Language Learning Questionnaire (BAELLQ) adapted from BALLI developed by Horwitz (1987), to explore the beliefs of third-year English majors in an engineering university—Southwest Petroleum University, southwest China.The current study was carried out to describe the beliefs about English language learning that are held by third-year English majors in southwest China, to explore whether there are belief differences between students with high-score and those with low-score, and between male students and female ones, and to examine the relationship between students' beliefs and their learning outcomes here indicated by their TEM-4 scores.The descriptive statistics analysis showed that some English majors still held some beliefs which might have negative effect on their English learning though they have already been in the higher cognitive level. The Independent Sample T-Tests indicated that the beliefs of students with high-score and those with low-score were significantly different in six items, and that the beliefs of male students and female ones were significantly different in three items, although these belief differences were not as obvious as the author expected. And the correlation analysis reported that nine student beliefs were significantly correlated with their TEM-4 scores and among the nine beliefs, two beliefs, from the multiple regression linear analysis, were significant beliefs which could predict students' TEM-4 scores.The results of the current study imply that after at least 8-year learning of English, the students, in spite of the differences in their sex or achievements on English, tend to hold similar beliefs about English language learning, which requires teachers to lay more emphasis on other learner variables such as learning style, learning strategy while paying attention to learners' beliefs.