A Study Of The Relationship Among Tolerance Of Ambiguity,Language Learning Strategy And English Learning Proficiency Of College Students

In recent years, the research about tolerance of ambiguity and language learning strategy enriched the second language acquisition field in which the focus has been their prediction towards language learning proficiency respectively. The thesis, based on the literature review of previous studies, hypothesizes that language learning strategy serves as the intervening variable between tolerance of ambiguity and language learning proficiency.The research questions are as followed: What is the general state of non-English majors’tolerance of ambiguity and that of their language learning strategy? What is the relationship between tolerance of ambiguity and language learning strategy for college students? What is the relationship between tolerance of ambiguity and English learning proficiency for college students? What is the relationship between language learning strategy and English learning proficiency for college students? What is the relationship among tolerance of ambiguity, language learning strategy and English learning proficiency for college students?In order to solve those five questions, the study focused on304non-English majors as the subject with the help of SPSS17.0. Through the analysis and discussion, five major findings yielded in response to the five questions. Firstly, non-English majors’ tolerance of ambiguity level is, generally speaking, quite low and that of their language learning strategy is around average. As well as that, the level of their input tolerance of ambiguity is significantly higher than that of their output ones. Secondly, as for the relationships between each two of the three variables, only the relationship between tolerance and ambiguity and language learning strategy proved to be significant. To be more specific, cognitive strategy and metacognitive strategy play the most significant role in the general relationship. Besides, memory strategy and compensation strategy also contribute to the relationship between tolerance of ambiguity and language learning strategy. Lastly, the original hypothesis of language learning strategy being the intervening variable proved to be false with a very low value of significance. On the contrary, compensation strategy was verified as the intervening variable between affective strategy and language learning proficiency. Foreign language learning is a process filled with all kinds of ambiguities. That is why foreign language learners are frequently in a highly unstable learning situation. Therefore, teachers should provide methods and strategies for them to lower their ambiguity towards language learning and take their individual differences into consideration. At the same time, they should also remind students of keeping their tolerance of ambiguity at an appropriate level because too high or too low level of tolerance of ambiguity would not be helpful for their English learning.