An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Integrating Language Learning Strategy Into EFL Instruction For Non-English Major Students In Independent Colleges

Language learning strategies play an important role in language learning. Therefore, numerous researchers home and abroad have studied all the aspects of language learning strategies in the past decades. However, few studies of language learning strategy have been made at the independent college level. With the reform of education system, a lot of universities in China have set up independent colleges to get more high school graduates. But students in those colleges have been regarded as low English proficiency learners due to their weak foundation and low motivation in learning English. To explore the solution, the present study employed a specific survey of language learning strategy use and tried to conduct a one-semester (36hours) language learning strategy training in independent college, aiming to investigate non-English major students’ use of learning strategies and the effects of integrating language learning strategy into EFL instruction for non-English major students in independent colleges. The participants were68second-year non-English major students from Guangxi University XingJian College of Science and Liberal Arts. They were assigned to experimental group (30subjects) and control group (38subjects). The instruments for this study included pretest and posttest questionnaire, and simulated CET Band4English proficiency test for pretest and post test. The questionnaire consisted of two parts:personal background information part and the evaluation of English learning strategy use with fifty Likert-scale items mostly adapted from Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning items. SPSS16.0for Windows was used to compute and analyze the data of this study.The results of the study indicated that:(1) Non-English major students from independent college have a low frequency in using learning strategies; the types of strategy that most and least frequently used by non-English major students independent college students were compensation and affective strategies, respectively. The results reveal that the students had weak awareness of using language learning strategies, and it is, therefore, important for English teachers in independent college to train the students to employ learning strategies.(2) After the introduction of language learning strategy instruction, the difference in the frequency of overall strategy use between the experimental group and the control group was significant and the experimental group had significantly higher use of strategy than did the control group in each type of strategy, indicating that non-English major students at independent college could be trained with language learning strategies to enhance the frequency of their strategy use.(3) After one semester of language learning strategy instruction, the experimental group didn’t perform significantly better than the control group in terms of their English language proficiency. However, the results of this present study still supported this viewpoint that the strategy instruction had positive impacts to some extent on non-English major students’ English performance in independent college if properly conducted, for it had positive effects on enhancing students’language learning strategy use according to the result of questionnaire surveys and strategy instruction itself is complicated and yet pervasive in second language acquisition.According to the research results, some pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research are illustrated. It is hoped that teachers can properly integrate language learning strategy into EFL instruction so as to improve students’ English learning motivation and English performance. The researcher hoped that this study will provide different insights into English teaching reform at independent college level.