A Study On The Relationship Between Vietnamese Major Students' Self-efficacy,Self-regulated Learning Strategies And Language Achievement

Abundant evidence underscores the significant role played by second/foreign language learners' self-efficacy and self-regulated learning strategies in their language achievement.Ample empirical studies focused on the two factors have been conducted in the English as a second/foreign language context.Since less commonly taught languages have been brought to the forefront of foreign language teaching and learning by The Belt and Road Initiative,the research of Vietnamese language learning,however,is still relatively few.More specifically,there has been little empirical inquiry into learners' self-efficacy and SRL strategies in the Chinese context of Vietnamese as a foreign language.Based on Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Zimmerman's and Pintrich's self-regulated learning theory,the study adopted the empirical quantitative research method to exploit self-efficacy and SRL strategies.326 participants responding to the questionnaire were sophomores,juniors and seniors majoring Vietnamese from 8universities and colleges in Yunnan province,China.SPSS 18.0 was used to statistically analyze the final data applying the descriptive statistics,correlation analysis and One-Way ANOVA.The results showed that: 1)Vietnamese majors' self-efficacy and SRL strategies use was both intermediate.2)Self-efficacy and SRL strategies use was significantly different among three grades.Seniors' self-efficacy was distinctly the highest,while self-efficacy of sophomores and juniors were not strikingly different.Remarkable differences of SRL strategies use were discovered between sophomores and juniors as well as between sophomores and seniors,but not between juniors and seniors.3)There was a positively significant relationship between self-efficacy and SRL strategies as well as between self-efficacy and Vietnamese achievement.Total use of SRL strategies and language achievement was not related to each other,but three SRL sub-categories including persistence strategy,seeking opportunities strategy and integration strategies were positively correlated to Vietnamese achievement.4)As for the significant difference of self-efficacy among different achievements,high-achievers' self-efficacy was the highest compared to that of medium-and low-achievers.There was no conspicuous disparity between medium-and low-achievers.In terms of significant difference of SRL sub-categories,high-achievers made a more frequent use of persistence strategy,compared with medium-achievers.They relied on more use of seeking opportunities strategy than low-achievers did.And low-achievers employed more rehearsal and memorizing strategy than medium-achievers did.In the light of discussion on the research findings,this study provides the implications for less commonly taught languages learning and teaching,describes existing limitations of the present investigation and suggests recommendations for future research.It is hoped that the inquiry could be of any help and benefit towards the research related to less commonly taught languages.