Effects Of Brain Hemisphere Preference On The Choice Of Learning Strategies

Brain hemsPhere preference-eft-brained or right-brained, as a stablestyle constrUct was assumed to be related to str&tegy choice. But there is noemPirical evidence to prove it. This study, based on neuropsychologicalfindings, is aimed at attaining three main purposes, namely (1) describing theprofile of hemisphere preference of Chinese college leamers when they wereleaming English as a second language, (2) describing the profile of leamingstrategies by different hemisphere preferred learners, (3) determining therelationship betWeen hemisphere preference and strategy use. T'he study wascatried out in a populaton of 300 ESL stUdents in three colleges. The data fOrthe 224 usable questionnaires were coded for statistical analysis. T'he resultswere as fol1ows. First, Chinese ESL college students had a slight right brainpreference. Second, left-brained stUdents used significantly more strategiesthan the right-brained. In terms of category, the left-brained preferred to usesignificantly more memory stTategies and metacognitive strategy. Third, brainpreference was closely correlated to strategy usage. The more left brain waspreferred, the more metacognitive, cognitive and memory stTategies wereused. Suggestions are chiefly concemed with the importance of a deeperunderstanding of the brain preference in foreign language proficiency, thenecessity of moving the topic of this stUdy to specific areas such as listening,speaking, reading and wrihng, the necessity of comParing strategies used byleft-brained/right-brained learners in one skill area and that in others.