Tolerance Of Ambiguity And College English Learning Achievement In China

When learning a foreign language, learners exhibit distinct individual differences in personality, language aptitude, motivation, affective states, learning styles, etc., which take a great amount of responsibility for the differences in their language learning achievements. As an affective factor, tolerance of ambiguity has been found to have a noticeable influence on second language acquisition (Naiman, Frohlich, & Todesco, 1978; Chapelle & Roberts, 1986; Ely, 1989; McLain 1993). Second language acquisition is a process in which language learners will consistently experience all kinds of ambiguities as the pronunciation, spelling, grammar, discourse structure and cultural backgrounds of the target language are nearly all new to the learners. Confronted with the great differences between the target language and their mother tongue, learners are caught in a highly uncertain mental state frequently and tend to be anxious and less motivated. The research into the effects of tolerance of ambiguity on college English learning achievement can benefit English learners by helping them to know more about themselves. What's more, such research may provide pedagogical evidences for teachers so that they can help students to actively face and appropriately treat the language ambiguities, enjoy the...