The Influence Of Non-English Majors' Personality Traits On Their Choices Of English Language Learning Strategies

In the 1970s, researchers and teachers came to realize that no single research finding and no single language teaching method would lead to complete success in teaching a second or foreign language. Therefore, there has been a great shift from"how to teach"to"how to learn"within the field of language teaching and learning over the last more than twenty years. Since learners are subjects of learning a second or foreign language, researchers in the field of language teaching put more emphasis on studying language learners. Personality traits are important individual factors, while learning strategies which are approaches employed by learners to promote language learning play a mediating role in the relationship between learners and learning achievements.The importance of learning strategy choice and use in the process of second or foreign language learning should not be neglected. Studies on learning strategies date back to the early 1960s. The preliminary research aimed at searching for the characteristics of good language learners. Researchers abroad mainly center on such aspects as definitions, classifications, the factors influencing strategy use, strategy training, and the effects of choices of strategies on language learning. The research at home covers choices of strategies, strategy training and learner factors conditioning strategies, which are of great importance for Chinese learners to learn a foreign language and for Chinese teachers to carry out strategy training.A number of teachers relate personality factors to foreign language learning. However, in the field of research on second or foreign language teaching, personality factors have not received much attention. Studies of the influence of personality traits on choices of language learning strategies are so scanty. Some research findings abroad need to be demonstrated, and some studies at home are only limited to the personality dimension, introversion/extroversion. Therefore, a clear and panoramic picture should be painted about this issue.Because of the reasons mentioned above, the study, based on the previous research findings, employs quantitative analysis to explore the relationship between non-English majors'personality traits and their choices of learning strategies under the frameworks of Cattell's trait theory and Oxford's classification of learning strategies. Two most popular questionnaires were adopted to conduct surveys on personality traits and learning strategies among 113 non-English majors. Then descriptive statistics, correlation, multiple regression analysis and partial correlation were employed to carry out descriptive and inferential statistical analyses of data and find out the influence of personality traits on choices of learning strategies. The research findings are as follows.Firstly, as for the learning strategy use, the strategies which are the most frequently used by non-English majors are the compensation, followed by the cognitive, the metacognitive, the memory, the affective, and the social.Secondly, through correlation analysis, three traits were recognized to be positively correlated with choices of learning strategies, i.e. warmth, liveliness, and rule-consciousness. These three traits respectively also have positive correlation with some of the six subcategories of learning strategies. They enter the models based on some correlative subcategories and predict the change of choices of these subcategories of learning strategies.Thirdly, the three traits, warmth, liveliness, and rule-consciousness, also have influence on the correlation between the subcategories of learning strategies, and they can make their positive correlation increase.According to the research findings, the study makes some suggestion for college English teaching: (1) learning about learners'personality traits and their choices of learning strategies, which is the foundation for effective strategy training; (2) developing learners'self-awareness of their personality traits and choices of learning strategies, which can enable learners to improve their choices of learning strategies consciously; (3) taking the influence of personality traits into consideration in course of strategy training and designing effective tasks and activities to promote learners'using appropriate learning strategies and their improving language skills.This study provides some statistical support for relevant theories on the influence of personality traits on choices of learning strategies. However, in terms of such limitations as the size of the sample, the instruments for data collection, and the difficulty in controlling other factors influencing choices of learning strategies, whether the findings of the study are universal needs to be demonstrated. Therefore, future relevant researches are expected to employ more methods (e.g. qualitative analysis) and large samples or stratified samples to conduct systematic research on the influence of personality traits on choices of learning strategies for the purpose of having a clear and panoramic picture of this issue.