| As more and more international students came to Dalian University of Technology (DUT) to pursue Chinese learning, the diversity of their ethnicity, cultural background as well as prior educational experience lead to their different learning goals, interests, difficulties and preferred strategies in Chinese learning. Learning Chinese in local contexts brings overseas students a lot of study opportunities, but at the same time it also poses a great number of challenges to Chinese teaching. In this dissertation, a research is carried to explore the overseas Chinese learners’ beliefs according to the eight categories of learners’ beliefs based on Richards and Lockhart (1994) and their corresponding learning strategies according to the six classifications of learning strategies developed by Rebecca L. Oxford (1989).As for the methodology,158 overseas students from the School of International Education in DUT are selected to participate in the research. Semi-structured interview and questionnaire are employed to collect the data about different ethnic students’ beliefs and strategy use in Chinese learning. After that, the mean values of the overseas students’beliefs and learning strategies in Chinese learning are calculated with the help of Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) 17.0. Next, the factors as well as the influences on Chinese classroom teaching regarding the diversity of beliefs and strategy use in Chinese learning are analyzed and discussed in detail.Through this research, it is demonstrated that the overseas students from different ethnic backgrounds have various beliefs in Chinese learning, which in turn affect their strategy use regarding Chinese study. Meanwhile, the findings clearly support the view that different learning strategies need to be highlighted during the process of Chinese classroom teaching to meet the needs of overseas Chinese learners from diverse ethnic groups.Based on the above findings, the author discusses some pedagogical implications of the investigation and comes up with suggestions for Chinese teachers performing Chinese classroom teaching. It is suggested that the concept of learning strategies should be introduced into Chinese classroom teaching in order to meet multifaceted expectations of different ethnic international students in Chinese learning. In addition, a Chinese learning community could be established to help different ethnic Chinese learners integrate into cooperative learning in class and improve their Chinese learning outcomes. |
