Effects Of Individualist/Collectivist Orientations On Adult EFL Learners' Learning Beliefs

In Chinese culture Confucianism and Communist ideologies (Marxism, Mao Zedong thought) have coexisted for a long time. China as a socialistic society is often referred as a"collectivistic culture". Since the opening of China to Western influences and with the further acceleration by the admittance to WTO in 2001, signs of foreign culture effects can be seen everywhere at hand in China's cities. In cross-cultural psychology the traditional conceptualization of individualism and collectivism as ideas on opposite ends does not seems to meet today's globalization and it needs better formulation. This study tested Triandis' (1995) horizontal and vertical individualism/collectivism typology for its ability to detect adult EFL learners'cultural orientations within a traditionally conceptualized collectivistic culture, and examined the effects of these cultural orientations in adult EFL leaner's learning beliefs. The subjects in this research are the 113 adult students learning English as a foreign language at the school of continuous education in Dalian University of Foreign Languages.The valid Questionnaires are 104.Triandis (1995) Individualism Collectivism Scale (ICS) and Horwitz (1987) the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) are adapted to explore the relationship between levels of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism, and the learner's beliefs respectively. The collected data are analyzed by Independent t-test and Descriptive Statistics in the Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13.0. Statistics suggests that the group aged from 18-24 years adult EFL learners are easily than the other group aged from 25-38 years to be influenced by the Individualistic values, both in horizontal and vertical dimensions. They also present strongly Horizontal Collectivistic orientations than the other ones. Adult EFL learners who have completed a university-level education and have the above level of their previous educational background are more Horizontal Individualistic and more Collectivistic in both dimensions. (Who are they?) The cultural orientations can influence adult learner's beliefs on several aspects. Our findings suggest that the Collectivistic orientation learners are more likely than the individualistic ones to believe that it is easier to speak than understand English. The Collectivistic orientation learners have more negative beliefs than individualistic orientation learners toward difficulty of English learning. The two groups of different cultural orientations also have different beliefs on the learning strategies. Based on the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory, our findings also show that adult learners believe English is difficult to learn; vocabulary and grammar and oral English practice are all important to learn English well; and the more popular motivation is to get a good job opportunity.From this research we can have a better understanding of the participants'English language learning beliefs, as well as the effects of individualistic—collectivistic orientations on their language learning beliefs. Also it can help teachers to establish positive beliefs in adult learners on English learning. Though there may be some deficiencies, the combination of cross-cultural psychology and applied linguistics is a highlight in this thesis. Still, a broader and more representative sample of subjects would be desirable for future research.