Investigation Into English Listening And Speaking Strategies Employed By Chinese Students Before And After Going To The UK

The present study was carried out to investigate the English listening and speaking strategies employed by the students when they were in China and the UK, and to find out the factors affecting their use of these strategies. The theory on which this study was based was Attribution Theory. The significance of this study is to find out the listening and speaking learning strategies in the different contexts and provide some references for Chinese learners and teachers of English, especially for those who are soon going abroad.The research questions to be addressed in this study were as follows:1) What are the English listening and speaking strategies employed by Chinese university students before going to the UK?2) What are the English listening and speaking strategies employed by the same students after going to the UK?3) To what extent do the English listening and speaking strategies employed by Chinese university students before going to the UK differ from those after going to the UK?4) What factors affect their use of the English listening and speaking strategies?Two research designs were involved:questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire subjects in this study were made up of20Chinese students who were working for their Master’s degree in the UK. They were studying the different master programs in different universities for at least one year. They were the researcher’s friends, who were willing to help and cooperative. The questionnaire consists of four sections, touching upon their background information, the English listening and speaking strategies employed by Chinese university students before going to the UK, the English listening and speaking strategies employed by the same students after going to the UK, and the factors affecting their use of the English listening and speaking strategies. The data were collected online through e-mail by the researcher herself and response rate was100%. The data analysis involved calculating the frequency and percentage of the strategies in the quantitative part and categorization and coding in the qualitative part. In the interview,4subjects were chosen out of20,2with higher scores and2with lower scores on the IELTS. Besides, they were out-going and good at expressing themselves. The interview was conducted in Chinese. The interview guide centered around the changes in their strategies and the factors affecting their use of strategies. The data were first recorded and collected in the library and their dormitory, and then transcribed and translated by the researcher. Data analysis involved categorization and coding.This study has generated the following major findings:Firstly, the English listening and speaking strategies employed most by Chinese university students before going to the UK are practicing speaking the words, phrases and sentences several times; memorizing new words from vocabulary books or reading materials; and identifying the learning needs before starting to learn, for example improve English speaking ability for better jobs.Secondly, the English listening and speaking strategies employed by the same students after going to the UK are mainly memorizing new words anytime they see or hear by chance; learning from sessions, lectures and seminars; watching local TV programs, movies, and drama; reading course books and relevant materials and accommodating different words or phrases to different contexts.Thirdly, there are two changes in their strategies. One is that the cognitive strategy tends to decrease; the other is that social strategy and metacognitive strategy tends to increase. The strategy that remains unchanged is memorization, which seems to be the most basic learning strategy for Chinese learners no matter in China and the UK.Fourthly, the factors affecting their use of the English listening and speaking strategies are context shifting, target language environment, different cultural understanding, purposes and motivations. There seems to be a chain reaction in these factors:context shifting and target language environment lead to different cultural understanding, which in turns leads to different purposes and motivations.The study has three limitations. The first is that the sample is not large to be generalizable to the whole overseas students. The second is that the questionnaire for investigating the strategies employed Chinese students before going to the UK was conducted after they stayed there for a year or more. The questionnaire that should have been conducted a year or more might reveal more convincing data. The third is that some questions in the questionnaire and in the interview are overlapping.