A Study On The Relationship Between College EFI Learners’ Learning Beliefs And English Achievements

Language learning beliefs refers to learners’ psychological attitude and mental state towards language learning on the basis of a certain language learning. Elaine Horwitz was the great pioneer and researcher who firstly used the term “beliefs” to refer to the language learners’ preconceived notions about language learning in 1987, and she made a questionnaire of “Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory”(BALLI). Based on Horwitz’ questionnaire, five aspects of beliefs concluded, they are the beliefs about foreign language aptitude(FLA), difficulty of language learning(DLL), the nature of language learning(NLL), learning and communication strategies(LCS) and learner motivation and expectations(LME). Language Learning Beliefs construct a major and inner factor that influences learning behaviors and learning achievements directly. Various learning beliefs the students hold will give rise to different learning styles and different learning strategies. Therefore, different outcomes would be caused accordingly.Based on the previous studies, the present study is carried out to study the English learning beliefs held by sophomores who are non-English major learners in Yanshan University. The author intends to make a study and tries to investigate what kind of English learning beliefs do Chinese EFL learners have and figure out whether there is any relationship between college EFL learners’ learning beliefs and English achievements and how closely they are related. Furthermore, the English learning beliefs comparison would be made between the students whose achievements are different. In this study, the English achievements contain the English score of University Entrance Examination and the score of College English Test Band four(CET-4).The experiment is designed which employs a combination of quantitative method and qualitative method. The data were collected through the questionnaire “Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory” and a semi-structured interview. Descriptive analysis on language learning belief would explain the informants’ attitudes to English learning from a general perspective. Independent Sample T-test and Paired-sample T-test were applied tofind out the effects of English learning beliefs on English achievements between the high achievers and low achievers respectively.The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data led to the following findings:First of all, it can be indicated that instrumental beliefs are held by most students. 82.4%of them study English for passing examinations while the participants who are interested in English accounts for 33.6%. Second, Pearson correlation analysis implies that English learning beliefs, especially learning and communication strategies, and self-learning are positively and significantly correlated with English learning achievement. In addition, the students who have got high scores in University Entrance Examination and CET-4 English tests tend to have better beliefs in English learning, and they are inclined to employ learning strategies effectively. The students who have got low scores tend to be negative in English learning. However, the score of CET-4 has declined compared with that in the University Entrance Examination because of the change of learning motivations. The teachers should notice the differences and changes of the students’ learning beliefs and help them improve English achievements.