A Probe Into Chinese Students' Attitudes Towards Chinese Learning In China

With deepen reform and opening up, China’s international status, economic and political influence rises, which brings more and more government and non-government exchanges between China and US. There are more and more American students recognize the importance of learning Chinese, and have traveled a long distance to China to learn Chinese. No matter for the in-China American students could better learn Chinese, or Chinese language teachers could teach more effectively, it is very necessary and meaningful to study and explore the Chinese learning attitude of American students in China.In this study, I investigated the in-China American students’the attitude towards Chinese learning, their attitudes toward Chinese culture and Chinese people to acquire their comprehensive attitudes towards Chinese learning. The analyses include the overall attitude and the difference of attitude. I also collected the participants’ evaluation and opinions on Chinese learning and the difficulties they might encounter in the learning process. Finally, I concluded the characteristics of the in-China American students’Chinese learning attitudes, and put forward a few concrete and feasible suggestions for Chinese teaching.The theoretical basis of the study is the language attitude theory, social psychology and social education theory. The research data was obtained through the questionnaire, and ran by SPSS, data analysis software, for statistical analysis of the survey results. At the same time, I also used the interview method, the observation method for further supplementing, explaining and verifying as far as possible to ensure the research result to be more comprehensive, authentic and effective.The first chapter is the introduction, which introduces the origin of the study and the significance of the selected topic; the theory basis of this study, which contains the related research of language learning attitude; and the methods of the study.The second chapter demonstrates the scale and the questionnaire of the research, and the survey results of the participants’basic information. Based on the extensive reading of data and the former research, under the guidance of my adviser, I design "the In-China American Students’Chinese Learning Attitude Questionnaire", which includes "the Chinese Learning Attitude Rating Scale", "the Chinese Cultural Attitudes Rating Scale" and "the Chinese People Attitude Rating Scale"In the third chapter, by employing SPSS, combined with interviews and observations, I analyzed the in-China American students’Chinese language learning attitude, which consists of the overall analysis and the difference analysis. I also explored the in-China American students’perception of Chinese learning, Chinese characters, their difficulties during the process, and compared their evaluation of English and Chinese.In the fourth chapter, by using the SPSS, combined with observation and interviews, I analyzed the in-China American students’attitude towards Chinese culture and Chinese people, which includes the overall analysis and the difference analysis. At the same time, both the interview and the answers of the open-ended questions, further supplement and explain the study.The fifth chapter is about the reflection and suggestions for teaching.Firstly, I concluded the characteristics of the in-China American students" Chinese learning attitude, and on the principle of positive guidance, accordingly put forward the teaching thoughts and suggestions.The chapter six is the conclusion with the summary of the introduction of the relevant academic background, the limitation of the previous research, the significance, the main contents, the main methods, the research conclusions, the innovative points, the insufficiency and the future research direction.The result of the study indicates that the in-China American students’Chinese learning attitude, their attitude towards Chinese culture and Chinese people are comparatively positive. Their Chinese learning attitude and the attitude towards Chinese people have higher scores than their attitude towards Chinese culture. The participants’different background factors do affect their Chinese learning attitude, their Chinese cultural attitude and their Chinese people attitude. For most of the in-China American students, they consider that it is very difficult to learn Chinese, but it’s also very worthwhile. At the same time, the majority hold the opinion that the most difficult part during the learning process is speaking and writing, particularly tones and Chinese characters.According to the above study results, I summarize the characteristics of the in-China American students’ Chinese learning attitude, and accordingly put forward relevant specific teaching suggestions. The innovation of this study is the very specific study subject, which is all about the in-China American students. The investigation not only includes their attitude towards Chinese learning, but also their evaluation and perception of Chinese culture and Chinese people’s with the dig-deep longitudinal analysis, while covering a comparatively comprehensive range for the topic of the Chinese language learning attitude. This study further supplements and expands the current study in the field. At the same time, according to the in-China American students’ Chinese learning attitude and characteristics, this study also provides some feasible teaching strategies and suggestions for teachers.