The Study Of Foreign Students’ Beliefs About Learning Chinese

Riding along the same wave of Higher Education’s internationalization and the continuous growth of China’s comprehensive strength as a nation, an increasing number of foreign students are streaming into China’s higher education institutions. Over the past decade, the total number of international students in China has grown,and China is currently the world’s third-largest recipient of international students. China’s ministry of education published Study in China Plan in 2010,which emphasizes an urge to research the education of foreign students and teaching Chinese as a foreign language.In the academic field of foreign/second language acquisition and learning,researchers and teachers now focus more on students and their individual differences.As a result,the learners’beliefs about language learning is taken seriously by scholars home and abroad.On the basis of synthesizing relevant theoretical and empirical researches,this thesis carried out an empirical investigation and detailed analysis on foreign students’ beliefs about learning Chinese.This study took 201 foreign students in Nanjing University Overseas Education College as respondents.Itused the Beliefs About Langunge Learning Inventory(BALLI) developed by Horwitz as the measuring tool,and combined with individual interviews,tries to understand the current situation of foreign students, beliefs about learning Chinese,and the differences between different groups of foreign students.According to the collected data,the results show that:Most foreign students regard Chinese as a comparatively, or very difficult language to learn, and the general consensus is that writing is the toughest aspect.Almost half of subjects estimate that the amount of time it takes to master Chinese is 3 to 5 years. We can see that,even though foreign students think Chinese is a difficult language to study, it is not too difficult to learn or master.Most of the subjects admit the existence of foreign language aptitude,but when asked if they themselves possess the aptitude,most of them didn’t agree. At the same time,most foreign students believe that they can eventually learn Chinese sufficiently,so we can see that, the foreign students’ understanding that studying Chinese is not an easy task is the deciding factor for them to learn Chinese well.The majority of the subjects recognized the importance of culture and environment to language learning, the majority placing more importance on the cultural aspect.Most of the foreign students expressed that they were willing to communicate with local people proactively,and they would like to use learning strategies,such as the guessing strategy to improve their Chinese learning.With regard to the teaching style in Chinese classroom,most foreign students found that the current methods congruent with their desires, however they also feel the teaching process could be made to be more interesting.By further analyzing the differences between dfferent groups of foreign students,the study discovered that, foreign students from the Non-Sinogram Cultural Circle(NSCC)found Chinese,especially oral Chinese,more difficult compared to the foreign students from Sonogram Cultural Circle(SCC),and they placed more importance on the language environment.The foreign students from SCC believed that Chinese is more important in their country,they emphasized more importance on the vocabulary while the foreign students from NSCC prefer to practice Chinese in social life,and they found the teaching style in the Chinese classroom is more fit for them than the foreign students from NSCC.According to the results above,a conclusion can be drawn that, currently foreign students have an enthusiasm for Chinese learning,and most of them believe that they can learn Chinese well.Chinese learners from different cultural background have different beliefs towards language, so during the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language,teaching should recognize different beliefs students hold and teach accordingly.Only in this way,can the foreign students get the best improvement in Chinese acquisition/which will also contribute to China’s internationalization of higher education.