A Comparative Study Of English Learning Strategy Use Between Han And Uygur Students In Kashgar Teachers’ College

This study attempts to identify English learning strategies employed by Han and Uygur students and to explore the similarities and differences in strategy use between them. The study was also designed to examine the choices of strategies by successful and less successful students of the two ethnic groups.109 senior English majors, (49 Han students and 60 Uygur students) from the English department of Kashgar Teachers’College are chosen as subjects in this study. The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) made by Oxford and CET-4 test were administered as instruments in the investigation. Students were designated as successful and less successful learners based on their scores on CET-4. English learning questionnaire was used to gather information on strategy use reported by students and the data was treated by using Microsoft Excel 2003. Oxford’s frequency scale was adopted for data analysis.It was found that (1) both Han and Uygur students’overall use of strategies is at a medium level. Uygur students employ learning strategies more frequently than Han students not only at overall use but also at category level. (2) According to the mean scores, the frequency order by Han students (from the most frequently used to the least frequently used) is compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, social strategies, affective strategies and memory strategies, while the frequency order by Uygur students is compensation, metacognitive, social, affective, memory and cognitive strategies. (3) Han students use much less affective, social and memory strategies than Uygur students. (4) With respect to the strategy preferences by different levels of Han and Uygur students, the findings are:Both upper groups of Han and Uygur students reported using both overall strategies and each strategy categories more frequently than lower group students; the learning strategy patterns among Han and Uygur students at higher level are highly similar and the difference lies in the rank order of the use of cognitive and social strategies; the higher level students from the two ethnic groups were found to have more use of compensation and metacognitive strategies than the lower level students; the students at the lower groups reported using each of the six strategy categories at a medium level. Besides, as for Han students, the upper group students preferred compensation strategies most and social strategies least. For lower group students, the most frequently used strategies were compensation strategies and the least frequently used strategies were memory strategies. For Uygur students, the higher level students reported using cognitive least frequently and compensation strategies most frequently while the lower level Uygur students preferred social strategies most and memory strategies least.The findings suggest that (1) teachers should make efforts to identify the learning strategy preferences of their students and take measures to match their teaching to students’ strategy preferences. (2) Both teachers and students should strengthen their strategy awareness and teachers should help their students realize the importance of strategy. (3) It is also pointed that a strategy training approach could be useful for English learning. Some suggestions for promoting strategy use are:encourage students to use their least preferred strategies; strengthen students’ use of their favorite strategies; introduce new strategies gradually; pay attention to learners’ individual strategy use.