A Comparative Study Of The Learning Strategies Of Elementary Chinese Learners In A Target Language Environment And A Non-target Language Environment

With the improvement of China's international status and the globalization of Chinese language,the number of people learning Chinese has increased year by year.Many of them have learned Chinese in a non-target language environment for a while and then continued to study in China.Changes in the language learning environment affect learners' choice and use of learning strategies.Studying the characteristics and changes of Chinese learning strategies in different language environments will help instructors and learners to adopt strategies to improve the effectiveness of Chinese learning.In this context,this study uses language environment as a variable to explore its impact on Chinese learning strategies.This paper takes 50 elementary Chinese learners from Schwarzman Scholars 2019 of Tsinghua University as the research object and adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,and draws on Oxford(1990)'s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL)to develop a suitable questionnaire for this study.The questionnaire investigates their Chinese learning strategies before and four months after they came to China.The descriptive analysis of the questionnaire data,One-Way ANOVA,and Paired-samples T Test were used to examine the situation and characteristics of their use of Chinese learning strategies both in target and non-target language environments respectively.The differences in the use of Chinese learning strategies in different language environments are compared from a dynamic perspective,and interviews are used to further analyze how changes in the language environment specifically affect changes in learning strategies.Finally,five suggestions are made on how to improve the effectiveness of Chinese learning.The research conclusion of this paper is:(1)In the non-target language environment,the use frequency of learning strategies is ranked from high to low as metacognitive strategy>social strategy>memory strategy=affective strategy>compensation strategy>cognitive strategy.Generally speaking,the average of learning strategy is 3.2967,which is medium frequency.This is caused by three factors:non-target language environment,low level of Chinese,and characteristics of online courses.(2)In the target language environment,the use frequency of learning strategies is ranked from high to low as social strategy>metacognitive strategy>memory strategy>affective strategy>cognitive strategy>compensation strategy.In general,the average of learning strategy is 3.8067,which has reached a high frequency.(3)In different language environments,the frequency of using metacognitive strategies is relatively high,and the frequency of using cognitive strategies and compensation strategies is relatively low.In the target language environment,both the frequency of use of overall learning strategy and various types of learning strategies are greatly improved than in non-target language environment.The changes are significantly different,indicating that changes of language environment have a significant effect on changes in learning strategies.(4)The language environment mainly affects learning strategies indirectly by changing the natural language environment and the classroom language environment where the learners are.However,the language environment is not the only factor affecting the changes in learning strategies.The changes in some learning strategies in this study are affected by factors such as learning content,learning duration,Chinese level,personality and motivation.