An Investigation of Teacher and Learner Beliefs About English Teaching and Learning for Mongolian University Student

Abstract

It has been widely agreed that the approaches teachers apply to language teaching, the attitudes students have, their motivation and target language proficiency are directly influenced or determined by their beliefs about language teaching and language learning respectively. This paper reports on a study which explored Mongolian teacher, Han teacher and Mongolian learner beliefs about the English teaching and learning of Inner Mongolian university students, with particular focus on the students' second language ability, the languages for classroom instruction and materials development. The results of the study indicate that there are belief differences among teachers and students; in particular, the beliefs of the Han teachers differ from those of Mongolian students. This study concludes that in order to improve Mongolian students' English teaching and learning, it is of vital importance to fill the belief discrepancy between teachers and students with regard to L3 acquisition, which is regarded as one of the crucial factors influencing the teaching and learning of English for Mongolian students in multilingual contexts in Inner Mongolia, China.

教师和学习者对语言教与学的信念直接影响或决定着教师在教学过程中采取的措施及学习者学习过程中的学习态度、学习动机和学习成绩。本文主要调查了蒙古族英语教师、汉族英语教师和蒙古族英语学习者对蒙古族大学生的第二语言能力，课堂教学和编写教材所使用的语言的信念。结果表明教师和学生之间，尤其是汉族英语教师和蒙古族英语学习者之间关于蒙古族大学生的第二语言能力，课堂教学和编写教材所使用的语言等方面存在着不同的信念。为了有效提高蒙古族学生的英语教学，应尽快解决影响蒙古族学生英语教学的重要因素，即教师与学生之间的信念差异。