A Study On English Learning Beliefs Of Minority Preparatory College Students In Guangxi

Ethnic minority preparatory education is a special form of higher education that cultivates qualified college students for the students who come from the ethnic minority areas. Minority preparatory college students are of importance in the college education; however, scholars pay less attention to them, previous scholar pointed out that to know students’English learning beliefs from the inner sight is the key for teachers to improve teaching quality and students’learning efficiency. Nowadays, preparatory college students are lack of clear goals in English learning, and they have low efficacy at English learning. Thus, exploring preparatory college students’ English learning beliefs is quite meaningful.The author applied Horwitz’ Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) to investigate preparatory college students, and 208 participants involved in the survey, while 10 interviewees took part in the semi-structure interview. The present thesis aims to explore three questions, namely,1) What’s the overall situation of preparatory college students’English learning beliefs in Guangxi? 2) Are there any potential problems in preparatory college students’ English learning beliefs? 3) If yes, what are the reasons that cause the problems?The data are analyzed through Statistics Package for Social Science (SPSS), and the findings of interview are discussed objectively, then several findings are as follows. The overall situation of preparatory college students’learning beliefs is not so positive, but most of them have a clear understanding about the nature of English language learning. They are lack of confidence in learning English, and they think they have no innate ability to learn English. Most of the students hold the extrinsic motivation for learning English and they don’t have systematic and scientific English learning strategies. And some problems exist in their learning beliefs, which are (1) Preparatory college students have no confidence in themselves, they regard themselves were born with low English aptitude and they are shy to speak English to others; (2) As for the four skills in English learning, preparatory college students have the most difficulty in speaking and listening, in this case, teachers should train students these two basic skills and cultivate students appropriate learning strategies; (3) Preparatory college students think that the English vocabulary learning is the most essential and they weight a lot on grammar learning; (4) The teaching materials they are using at present are boring for them, e.g. the books don’t have any pictures on it; as a result, elements of interesting should be added into the text. The reasons why those problems exist are as follows. First, The English learning strategies they are taken now are influenced by their past experience. Second, most of the preparatory college students come from villages in the minority area, their character are quite shy and introverted. And then, they are not so interested in English, they regard English is a tool and they just hope to get a certificate (CET4) during college. At last, the English teaching materials for preparatory college students are bored to them.Basing on the Constructivism and Humanism theories, the author puts forward some related suggestions, to start with, learning strategies should be trained by teachers, students should know how to learn English, and therefore their learning confidence can be improved while they achieve the success in learning English. Secondly, aiming at the problems of the difficulties in learning English listening and speaking, the English net-work learning center should be built by the college, students can learn by themselves with the online English learning center, and they can practice their oral English through Internet, in addition, it can meet the needs of students who at various learning level; what’s more, students’ autonomous learning ability can be cultivated. Thirdly, it is important to stimulate students’interest in learning English. Moreover, students’learning needs should be met in the class, and students’intrinsic motivation should be reinforced. Lastly, the teaching materials should be adjusted; the elements about Chinese ethnic culture and the elements related to the daily life of preparatory college students can be added. In this way, students’ interest of English learning may be aroused. It is worth mentioning that the formative evaluation should combine with the final exam, so students can be evaluated in a fair way. Leave aside the exam-orientation English learning; they may not have low interest in learning English anymore.