Developing Chinese College English Learners' Beliefs

Language learners hold a set of beliefs about language learning and these beliefs may influence the ways they learn, even though the beliefs are not always explicitly stated. A substantial body of studies has investigated the role of beliefs about language learning and their relations with other learner factors such as motivation, strategy, and autonomy. However, little has been known about how language teachers'intervention such as belief instruction may affect learner beliefs. Under such circumstances, the current study was aimed to find out whether belief instruction is effective in improving Chinese college students'beliefs about English learning.A five-week belief instruction experiment was conducted. A total of 80 college students (first-year non-English majors) from two English classes participated in this study. One class formed the experimental class receiving the belief instruction and 31 students from this class were selected as subjects for the experimental group. In contrast, the other class served as the control class and 43 students sampled from this class formed the control group. All the other conditions of these two groups were controlled:the same teacher, teaching materials, homework and length of class time.The questionnaire called A Survey on College English Learners'Beliefs (SCELB), adapted from Horwitz's (1988) questionnaire Belief about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI), was used in both the pre-survey and post-survey to assess the subjects'English learning beliefs. The quantitative data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed with independent-samples t test and paired-samples t test. A focus-group interview and a learner's written-report assignment were also used in the post-instruction phase in order to elicit more qualitative information accounting for the change of the learners'beliefs. Thus, a mixed-methods-research design was used.The results showed that students'beliefs underwent changes and the proposed belief instruction was effective in improving Chinese college students' beliefs in general, and it was especially effective in developing the positive-weak beliefs and alleviating the negative-strong beliefs.The findings suggest that teachers should explore the beliefs learners hold and apply belief instruction to improve learners' belief system in order to facilitate their English learning.