An Investigation Of English Learning Strategies Used By Preparatory Undergraduates In An Ethnic Minority University

Nowadays the issues of how to improve the students' English proficiency have aroused more and more attention in China. Although people put 'teaching' or 'teachers' in the central places in the learning process for a long lime ,this phenomenon has been changing since 1970s. People gradually recognized that 'learning' is a complicated process, the crucial roles during this process are not teachers hut students. Based on this notion, a great many of researches for language learning strategy (LLS) have been conducted, with the purpose of finding the good way of the improvement of students' achievement. Most of these studies in China have chosen ordinary college students as subjects. However, fewer researchers paidtheir attentions to Preparatory Undergraduates in Ethnic Minority College (PU) ------a specific group students.This study, using Chinese version of Oxford's (1990b) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL), investigated the strategy application of PU who were chosen from an minority institute of South-western region in China. The researchers examined the relationship between gender and proficiency and the self-reported language learning strategy (LLS) application of 264 PU. The general aim was to identify learning tendencies and patterns that were characteristics of this specific learning group. It was supposed to contribute to make a clear and comprehensive description of English learning strategy application of students at different levels, so that we can better understand individuals' needs, and in particular, help them to exploit strategies that may enhance their language learning.By comparing with other previous homogeneous research, I find that the results from the present study are almost consistent with those in other studies. For example, it is found that the frequency of overall strategy use of female students is significantly higher than that of male students, and that overall strategy use varies significantly by course level. Another similarity is the variation in the use of six categories of...