（英语语言文学专业论文）非英语专业学生英语学习观念、学习策略与动机调查.pdf

4 摘 要 自 20 世纪 70 年代始，第二语言习得的研究开始从教学方法研究的层次转向学习者个体差异方面，而学习者个体差异涉及心理年龄、语言学能、学习动机、认知风格、学习策略和性格特征等诸多因素，其中学习策略是学习者个体差异研究的关键。对学习策略和影响学习策略使用的因素进行研究，对外语教学具有积极的指导意义。只有了解和指导学生如何学，帮助他们建立正确的语言学习观和采取有效的学习策略，才能提高教学效果和减轻学生的学习负担。此外，对学生的学习策略开展研究有助于教师科学地设计和有效地进行教学活动。 国内外对学习策略的研究经历了三个阶段：第一阶段主要针对第二语言学习者所采用的策略进行区分和归纳；第二阶段主要针对学习策略的定义和分类；第三阶段主要研究策略的有效性。我国从 20 世纪 80 年代开始对学习策略进行研究，并取得了很大的进展。 所有研究极大丰富和扩展了学习策略的内涵。然而, 由于教育背景、学习目标、教学方法、任务要求和学习对象不同，并非所有的结论都一致。此外，中国对学习策略的研究大部分都集中在学生达到某一项语言技能所使用的策略上，很少涉及到影响学习策略使用的因素。因此，从这一方面对学习策略进行研究有其必要性。 本研究旨在调查普通高校学生的英语学习观念、学习策略和学习动机，以及学习策略受观念和动机影响的情况。调查设计的问题如下： （）非英语专业学生有怎样的英语学习观念、学习策略和动机； （）学生的观念、学习策略和动机经过三年的英语学习是否发生变化； （）观念、学习策略和动机之间是否存在相关性，观念和动机在多大程度上影响学习策略的选择 5 和使用。调查的对象涉及到同一专业的一年级、二年级和三年级的名非英语专业学生。所采用的工具为调查表，访谈和观察，并利用 spss 对所收集的数据进行分析。研究结果表明：学生有清楚的英语学习观念，但很少把自己所想付诸实施，因而尽可能未在英语学习中采用学习策略，其学习动机不强。随着英语水平的提高，他们的观念、学习策略和动机逐渐发生变化：管理观念、关注意义观念、关注准确观念和关注流畅的观念越来越强，而关注形式观念和依赖母语的观念越来越弱；他们逐渐采用管理策略、关注意义策略和关注流畅的策略，而较少采纳关注形式策略和依赖母语的策略；他们的表层动机没有变化，而深层动机逐渐加强。统计结果表明：观念和学习策略密切相关，动机和学习策略为其次，观念和动机的相关性最小。观念和动机在一定程度上影响学习策略的选择和使用。本研究强调加强学生观念、动机和学习策略的培养，并将学习策略的培训融入到教学中，使其成为英语教学的一部分。 关键词关键词：非英语专业学生；英语学习；观念；动机；学习策略 6 abstract since the early 1970s, research in the field of second language acquisition has shifted from teaching methods to individual learner differences. individual learner differences involve many factors such as age, language aptitude, motivation, cognitive style and learning strategies, among which learning strategies become one of the major concerns in language learning. research on learning strategies and the factors that affect the choice and use of learning strategy shows great potential because understanding how the students learn a foreign language is the critical precondition of determining how the language teachers teach. moreover, understanding students learning process is helpful to language teachers in the design and implementation of effective language instruction. up to now, a great deal of research has been done on learning strategies at home and abroad. research on learning strategies has experienced three stages since 1970s: the first stage concerns with identifying and listing all the strategies that second language learners used in their learning; the second stage focuses on classifying and giving definitions to learning strategies and the third stage deals with the effectiveness of learning strategies with their results reported and compared. research results have proved that learning strategies are beneficial to improving the learning efficiency. in china, research on learning strategies has been increasing since 1980s. most of these research focuses on one aspect of language learning skills from micro point of view and some convincing results have been acquired. 7 however, due to different educational settings, learning goals, teaching methods, task requirements and subjects, the findings are not completely consistent and further investigations need to be conducted. moreover, the relationship between learning strategies and other factors affecting learning strategy choice and use is seldom studied. this study is undertaken to find out the students learning strategies at general higher institutes and how their learning strategies are affected by beliefs and motivations. the subjects involved are 129 non- english major students from freshmen, sophomore and junior of the same major. the instruments used to collect the data are questionnaire, interview and observation. the spss is used to analyze the data. the research results indicate that students have clear beliefs about english learning, but they cannot put what they believe in into practice completely and adopt all kinds learning strategies in their english learning. their motivation of learning english is not strong. with the improvement of their english, students beliefs, motivation and learning strategies change gradually during the three years college english learning: their management beliefs, meaning-focused beliefs, accuracy-focused beliefs and fluency-focused beliefs are becoming stronger and stronger whereas their form-focused beliefs and mother-tongue-reliance beliefs are getting weaker and weaker; they gradually more adopt management strategies, meaning-focused strategies and fluency-focused strategies and less adopt form-focused strategies, accuracy-focused strategies and mother-tongue-reliance strategies; their surface motivation almost has no changes, while their deep motivation is getting stronger and 8 stronger. statistical results also show that there is a close relationship between the beliefs, motivation and learning strategies, but the relationships between beliefs and motivation are weaker. it is also found that beliefs and motivation affect the choice and use of learning strategies to some degree. finally, the necessity of cultivating students beliefs, learning strategies and motivation is put forward and conduction of the learning strategy teaching and training is recommended. key words: non-english major student; english learning; belief; learning strategy; motivation 11 introduction 0.1 significance of research in the past twenty years college english teaching, great attention has always been paid to the improvement of teaching materials and the exploration of teaching methods and teaching models, and great success has been achieved. but students learning process and individual differences are ignored to great extent. however, in recent years, researchers and language teachers begin to realize the importance of studying students learning process and giving more concern for their individual differences. thats why more and more empirical results appear in books and journals, which greatly inspires interests in studying students themselves. study on students learning process and individual differences can help language teachers to improve their teaching and give better guidance to students learning. nowadays we often hear of the students complaint. they say that they have spent a lot of time and energy learning english, but made little progress; they have great troubles in learning so many new words and phrases by heart; even if they can memorize the new words and phrases, but some time later they forget again and still do not know how to use them. some students even complain that their english level is not improved at all during the college english learning. its true that teachers should try their best to 12 improve their teaching level and teaching methods. but on the other hand, the students may lack correct beliefs, appropriate learning strategies and strong motivation, which results in the undesirable effects. in such a situation, its very important to understand how the students learn english, which is the critical precondition of determining how teachers teach. only by teaching students how to learn and cultivating their effective learning strategies can teachers improve their teaching and learning effects and relieve the students learning burden so that teaching quality can be greatly improved. in addition, having a full understanding of the students beliefs, motivation and learning strategies is helpful to language teachers in the design and implementation of effective language instruction. by investigating the relationships between beliefs, learning strategies and motivation, language teachers can design a better teaching model and carry out strategy training instruction to help students to achieve their learning goals. finally, by conducting the empirical research, the theory of the language acquisition can be greatly enriched and perfected. therefore, the study on beliefs, learning strategies and motivation is significant. 0.2 objectives of research in this thesis, the author attempts to find the non-english major students beliefs, learning strategies and motivation, how their beliefs and motivation affect the learning strategies, and what relationship exists between beliefs, learning strategies and motivation by investigation, interviews and observation. the research questions to be addressed in the study are the following: (1) investigate the beliefs, learning strategies and motivation of 13 non-english major students about english learning; (2) discover if beliefs, learning strategies and motivation of freshmen, sophomores and juniors have changed over time; (3) determine if there are some correlations between beliefs, learning strategies and motivation, and explore the extent to which beliefs and motivation affect the choice and use of learning strategies. 0.3 structure of thesis this thesis consists of the following five parts: (1) relevant studies. in this part, a brief description of what has been done in beliefs, learning strategies and motivation at home and abroad is given. (2) interpretation of the key terms. this part mainly deals with the conceptual definitions and classifications in the study. (3) research methodology. this part involves the description of the subjects, instruments used to measure the variables, process of data-collection and the procedure of the data-analysis. (4) results and discussion. this part mainly discusses and analyzes the results that have been obtained, and answers the questions that are put forward at the beginning of the thesis. meanwhile, the possible reasons for the specific findings and significance of the findings are explained. (5) conclusion and implication. this part provides the major findings, the implications of the findings and recommendations for the future research. 1. relevant studies on beliefs, learning strategies and motivation in this part, relevant studies on beliefs, learning strategies and motivation are described and evaluated in detail. 14 1.1 belief in fact, there has been little research about beliefs and how learners beliefs affect language learning, to say nothing of the relationship between beliefs and learning strategies. but wenden, horwitz and abraham & vanns research results are suggestive. wenden (1986a; 1987a), on the basis of his study, summarized three general categories of beliefs (ellis 1994:447): (1) use of language. it includes beliefs related to the importance of learning in a natural way -practicing, trying to think in the l2, and living and studying in an environment where the l2 is spoken; (2) learning about the language. learners with beliefs in this category emphasized learning grammar and vocabulary, enrolling in a language class, receiving feedback on errors they made, and being mentally active; (3) importance of personal factors. it includes beliefs about feelings that facilitate or inhibit learning, self-concept and aptitude for learning. he also found that learners who emphasized the importance of learning tended to use cognitive strategies that helped them to understand and remember specific items of language, while learners who emphasized the importance of using language employed few learning strategies, relying instead on communication strategies (ellis 1994:541). horwitz (1987a) used a questionnaire to investigate the belief of 32 intermediate level students of different ethnic backgrounds. he discussed the result in terms of five general areas: (1) beliefs about aptitude; (2) beliefs about the way to learn english; (3) beliefs about english-speaking cultures; (4) belief about learning and communication strategies; (5) belief about avoiding errors. abraham and vann (1987) found some evidence that beliefs might affect learning outcomes in a case study of two learners. 15 both learners believed that it was important to create situations for using english outside the classroom, to practice as much as possible, and to have error corrected. both of them also believed it important to participate actively in class. abraham & vanns investigation also shows that different views about language learning may result in different kinds of success. therefore, beliefs cannot be separated from individual learner differences in foreign language learning and learning strategies because the study on belief “constitutes an important area of enquiry, as it is reasonable to assume that their philosophy dictates their approach to learning and choice of specific learning strategies (ellis 1994:479). dr. wen qiufangs research result (1996, 2001) also shows that beliefs affect learning strategies and rod ellis (1994: 540-541) believes that learners beliefs about language learning may also affect their strategy choice and use. 1.2 learning strategy since the early 1970s, research in the field of second language acquisition has shifted from teaching methods to individual learner differences. individual learner differences involve the many factors such as age, language aptitude, motivation, cognitive style and learning strategies, among which learning strategy becomes one of the major concerns and research on them shows great potential. a great deal of research has been done on learning strategies at home and abroad. most of the research results reveal that learning strategies are beneficial to language learners. the study on learning strategies has seen an “ explosion of activity ” (skehen 1991: 285) (cited in rod ellis 1994: 529) in recent years and attracted more and more language researchers 16 attention. in this section, the major research findings at home and abroad in this field are described. first, a brief introduction of the background and development of learning strategies is given, and then the definitions and classifications of learning strategies are described. 1.2.1 background and development of learning strategies the study on learning strategies began in 1970s and grew out of attempts to characterize good language learners (rubin 1975; stern 1975; naiman et al 1975). in the early studies, some distinct features of good language learners were identified: (1) preparedness to guess; (2) attempt to communicate; (3) willingness to appear foolish; (4) attention to form; (5) practicing; (6) monitoring own and others speech; and (7) attending to meaning ( ellis 1994:547). after that, many researchers further discussed the features of good language learners, including the concept, definition and classification of learning strategies. since 1980s, most of research mainly concentrates on the following aspects: (1) essence of learning (stern 1983; rubin 1987; oxford 1989 and etc.); (2) classification of strategy (oxford 1990; omalley & chamot 1990; wenden 1991; a.cohen 1998 and etc.); (3) factors affecting strategy use (omalley & chamot 1990; oxford 1989; nation & machlaughlin 1986 and etc.) (4) strategies used by good language learners (ellis 1999; huang & naerssen 1985; omalley & chamot 1990 and etc.); (5) relationship between learning strategy use and l2 proficiency (mamgubhai 1991; ellis 1999 and etc.); (6) strategy training for learners (wenden 1983; brown 1989; oxford 1990 and etc.) the research done by omalley and chamot is the most influential. their research was 17 based on the information processing theory and guided by cognitive theory. on the basis of research on information comprehension, processing and storing, they obtained a series of theorized language learning strategies, classified these strategies and gave a detailed description. then they put these strategies into practice and tested them. their extensive studies on the language learning strategies from the aspects of theory and practice, and the research results greatly enriched the language learning strategies. several new trends appeared after 1990s. first, researchers began to combine the research of language learning strategies with the research on autonomy learning because the ultimate goal of education is to help students become independent, autonomous and effective learners. that is to say, studying on learning strategies is helpful to explore how to foster students to become independent, autonomous and effective learners. the combination of learning strategies and autonomy learning makes the goal of research on learning strategies clearer, more profound and more meaningful. second, learning strategies instruction became the major concern. in 1998, cohen published his important works-strategies in learning and using a second language, in which he particularly deals with the influence that language teaching model based on learning strategies have on foreign language learning, especially the influence on oral competence. third, researchers on language learning strategies began to show concern for the relationship between learning strategies and culture. researchers have found that learning strategy use is not only related to learners age, aptitude, intelligence, learning style, attitude and motivation, but also related to the cultural settings they are in and the culture they received. under the guidance of such realization, researchers began 18 to study the characteristics of learning strategy use under different cultural backgrounds. in 1996, oxford published her book-language learning strategies around the world: cross-cultural perspectives. in china, research on learning strategies has been increasing recently and has made great progress. most of the research focuses on one aspect of language skills: huang xiaohua (1985) and gao haihong (2000) investigated communicative strategies; yu lu (2003) and wu weiying (2000) did some research on chinese students listening strategies; wang wenyu (1998), wu xia (1998), wu lilin (2001), zhang ping (2001), chen hui (2001), lin ming (2002) and zhang ye (2003) investigated vocabulary learning strategies and their consistent results show that vocabulary learning strategies have great effect on foreign language learning; zhou xiaorong (2000) investigated learning strategies and their relationship to learning achievement in reading comprehension. dr. wen qiufang (1995, 1996a, 1997, 2001,) has done more systematic research on learning strategies and the relationship between learning strategies and learning achievement. their research results indicate that differen