Strategic Language Learning

The Roles of Agency and Context

By Xuesong Gao

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2010 Xuesong (Andy) Gao
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-243-6

Contents

Figures and Tables,
Acknowledgements,
1 Introduction,
2 Towards a Sociocultural Perspective on Strategic Learning,
3 Mainland Chinese Students’ Migration to Hong Kong,
4 On the Chinese Mainland,
5 Learning English in Hong Kong,
6 Four Case Studies,
7 Agency and Context in Strategic Learning,
Appendix 1: Interview Guide for the Arriving Mainland Chinese Undergraduates,
Appendix 2: The Exit Interview Guide for Mainland Chinese Undergraduates,
References,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book reports on an inquiry, conducted in three phases, exploring mainland Chinese students’ language learning experiences with a focus on their shifting strategy use prior to and after their arrival in an English-medium university in Hong Kong. The inquiry was motivated by my personal experiences as one of thousands of students moving from the Chinese mainland abroad to pursue tertiary education in English. Like many others, I faced daunting linguistic and academic challenges as a postgraduate student in English-medium universities or study programmes in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Hong Kong. I therefore became interested in understanding the experiences of students like me.

Although I initially intended to find out how mainland Chinese students coped with these challenges in British universities (Gao, 2003, 2006a), my educational experiences in Belgium and Hong Kong have led me to undertake inquiries into another group of Chinese students’ language learning experiences (Gao, 2006b, 2008a; Gao et al., 2008). Unlike their counterparts in British, North American or Australian universities, they do their academic studies through the medium of English in multilingual settings, where English may be a less frequently used language. Nevertheless, they still need to develop English competence for their survival and success in the new learning contexts because in these settings English is often a socially important language. In the case of Hong Kong, Cantonese, a regional version of Chinese, functions as the major medium for socialization in daily life and in most social, cultural and political occasions, while English is one of its official languages and widely used in the business and professional sectors. In addition, Putonghua, or Mandarin, the variety of Chinese spoken on the Chinese mainland, is a language of rising importance due to Hong Kong’s increasingly economic, socio-cultural and political ties with the mainland since 1997. Thus, Hong Kong presents itself as an interesting setting for an inquiry into learners’strategic learning efforts in order to gain insights into their pursuit of linguistic competence in a multilingual setting.

At the outset of the inquiry, it was noted that language learners tend to be advised to be efficient language learners in terms of strategy use in many learner development programmes due to a popular belief in the importance of strategy use for language learners’ learning success (Chamot, 2001; Cohen, 1998; Dörnyei, 2005; Ellis, 1994, 2004; Hsiao & Oxford, 2002; McDonough, 1999; Wenden, 1987, 1998, 2002; Zhang, 2003). In recent decades, the belief in learners’ strategy use as a significant cause of variation in their language learning achievements, confirmed by many studies, has given rise to an explosion of research on language learning strategy (LLS). However, it has also attracted many criticisms, such as the under-theorization of the construct itself (Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003; Ellis, 1994; Macaro, 2006) and methodological inappropriateness in LLS research (Dörnyei, 2005; Tseng et al., 2006; for a recent overview of criticisms of LLS research, see Macaro & Erler, 2008), leading to the possible marginalization of LLS research in mainstream language learning research. Moreover, the emphasis on the cognitive and metacognitive aspects of language learning in LLS research has also become problematic as language learning researchers have become increasingly cognizant of the importance of sociocultural contexts in learners’ learning (Atkinson, 2002; Block, 2003; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton & Toohey, 2001; Sealey & Carter, 2004; Watson-Gegeo, 2004; Zuengler & Miller, 2006). This has made it possible to introduce sociocultural perspectives, rarely pursued in LLS research, into research on language learners’ strategy use in particular settings (Donato & McCormick, 1994; Oxford, 2003; Palfreyman, 2003; Parks & Raymond, 2004).

Overview of the Inquiry

Drawing on a sociocultural language learning research perspective, the inquiry aimed to understand mainland Chinese undergraduates’ language learning experiences and strategy use in an English-medium university in Hong Kong. It addressed the following questions:

(1) To what extent and in what ways does mainland undergraduates’ LLS use change during their stay in Hong Kong?

(2) What does this reveal about the relationship between strategy use and context?

‘Strategy use’ in the above research questions refers to language learners’ efforts directed towards success in language learning and/or use (Cohen, 1998). Cohen (1998: 4) further states that ‘the element of choice’ is a defining characteristic of strategic learning behaviour. Thus, strategy use is related to learners’ exercise of agency as it reveals their self-consciousness, reflexivity, intentionality, cognition, emotionality and so on (Carter & New, 2004; Giddens, 1984; Sealey & Carter, 2004). While research to date has usually associated learners’ strategy use with cognitive and metacognitive processes (Chamot, 2004; Dörnyei, 2005; Macaro, 2006; Oxford, 2003), the inquiry relates strategy use to learners’ broader behavioural engagement in acquiring linguistic competence (Deckert, 2006). Consequently, in this book terms like strategic learning efforts are used interchangeably to refer to learners’ strategy use.

The inquiry was conducted in three phases, lasting for two years (Table 1.1). The study in Phase 1 dealt with the questions related to the study participants’ strategy use on the Chinese mainland. The study in Phase 2, a longitudinal follow-up phase, focused on six case study participants’ language learning experiences and shifting strategy use in Hong Kong. The study in Phase 3 involved the same participants as those in Phase 1 and explored their strategic learning efforts in Hong Kong. Such a design aimed to examine the participants’ shifting strategy use both as a group and as individuals.

Methodological Approach

The inquiry, which aimed to achieve a rich and contextualized picture of learners’ strategy use, resembles a longitudinal ethnographic-like research approach. Rooted in anthropological research, ethnography has been a long-standing research methodology in the social sciences, including education and sociology (Case, 2004; Cohen et al., 2000; Harkalau, 2005; Pole & Morrison, 2003; Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999; Richards, 2003; Watson-Gegeo, 1988). Ethnography is ‘an approach to social research based on the first-hand experience of social action within a discrete location, in which the objective is to collect data which will convey the subjective reality of the lived experience of those who inhabit that location’ (Pole & Morrison, 2003: 16). Traditional ethnography emphasizes the study of cultural behaviour in groups, although most ethnography studies start with individuals (Watson-Gegeo, 1988). It also values an insider perspective and usually requires the researcher to have an extended engagement with research participants in order to obtain a ‘thick description’ and holistic understanding of the phenomenon under research (Geertz, 1973, 1988; Skyrme, 2007). As a result, ethnographic research tends to be longitudinal in nature. Nevertheless, the ethnographic approach adopted in this inquiry should not be equated with full-scale ethnographies aiming to ‘convey the subjective reality of the lived experience’ of particular groups of individuals (learners) (Pole & Morrison, 2003: 16); it is best described as ‘ethnographic’, in line with Ramanathan and Atkinson (1999) who argue that ‘ethnographic’ research bears features of the full-scale ethnographies defined as above but can be distinguished from them by their narrower focus. In the inquiry, I studied and worked with the participants on campus for two years and even lived with one of the longitudinal phase participants in the same student residential hall for a year. In this manner, I gained first-hand experience and knowledge of the setting where the participants’ language learning took place.

The inquiry was also informed by a sociocultural perspective on language learning (Norton & Toohey, 2001; Sealey & Carter, 2004; Zuengler & Miller, 2006). The use of the sociocultural perspective was not intended to be restrictive, but rather operated as ‘a well-established fieldwork tradition, a strong conceptual orientation, or a trustworthy sense of intuition’ to guide my data collection and analysis in the actual research (Wolcott, 1995: 108). It also helped me to focus on gathering data broadly relevant to my research issues and facilitated my treatment of unstructured data, providing an organizing and sorting structure when analysing the data (Erickson, 2004; Smeyers & Verhesschen, 2001). Far more significantly, it gave me a ‘plot’ to construct the research narratives contained in this book (Polkinghorne, 1995; Smeyers & Verhesschen, 2001).

The longitudinal nature of the inquiry had an inevitable impact on the research process. Firstly, it was difficult for me to ensure that the number of research participants remained stable throughout the whole inquiry while the small number of participants in the longitudinal follow-up study might limit the generalization of the findings. However, in-depth analysis of the research participants’ experiences allows ‘analytic generalization’ to take place as the participants’ experiences were used to ‘illustrate, represent, or generalize to a theory’ (Yin, 1994: 44). Secondly, as the research moved on, the participants developed their own ideas about the research and reassessed its relevance to them. It was therefore necessary for me to negotiate and renegotiate with the participants about the forms of the research. Thirdly, as a qualitative researcher constantly in the process of examining and interpreting collected data, I was open to and prepared for new but related research questions to answer and to deal with alternative but relevant research issues as part of the continuous research process. Therefore, although I had a theoretical perspective to guide my research, I also let my data collection and data interpretation evolve as informed by the shifting research reality. For instance, I stopped using a strategy use checklist after negotiating with the research participants in the longitudinal follow-up study. In other words, the methodological approach in this study has certain features of methodological ‘bricolage’ (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004).

Enhancing Trustworthiness

As a reflexive researcher, I was aware that my position in the research process was never neutral, objective and distant. Instead, my research activities, like the engagement of researchers with the social world, as argued by Bhaskar (1979, cited in Corson, 1991: 233), ‘always and necessarily [consist] in a semantic, moral and political intervention in the life of the world, in ways that condition, mediate and transform each other continually’.

In order to retain the involvement of the participants in the longitudinal research process, I also tried to ensure that there were mutual benefits to the participants (Harrison et al., 2001; Sonali, 2006). Regular unstructured interviews or conversations were used to provide the participants with opportunities to use English with a relatively proficient English speaker. In addition, I offered extra help to the participants, such as proofreading their cover letters, resumes and essays. I invariably listened to their struggles in learning English and Cantonese with an empathetic ear. Sometimes I shared with them my own overseas language learning experiences and vulnerability as a non-native speaker teacher in the university. The participants gradually accepted me as a friend. In our conversations, I witnessed two participants burst into tears when academic and language learning experiences at the university became particularly stressful. Such mutual sharing might have influenced the participants’ language learning and had an impact on the research findings. However, ‘friendship’ can also be considered an important way of obtaining reliable data from the participants (Tillman-Healy, 2003). Nevertheless, I did act as one of many social agents in the context of who mediated the participants’ language learning. Consequently, I took extra care to ensure that the findings from this research stage were trustworthy.

In Phases 1 and 3, before I interviewed the participants each time, I explained the purposes of my research and informed them of their rights as research participants in the study. In Phase 2, I largely relied on ongoing reflections on the data and preliminary interpretations and regular attempts to clarify meanings of the data from the participants (Cho & Trent, 2006; Merriam, 1988; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Firstly, I kept a research journal at the start of the research stage, which recorded my experiences as a non-local resident at an undergraduate residence hall, observations and preliminary interpretations of the data. In order to undertake observation of the participants, I spent a year and a half living in an undergraduate hall, which enabled me to appreciate what it was like to live like a mainland Chinese student among local students. The conversations I had with local and non-local students at the hall of residence helped me to construct and interpret the case study participants’ language learning experiences with a focus on their strategy use. I constantly contrasted my own experiences with those of the participants and attempted to relive what they had lived.

Among the many steps I took to enhance the trustworthiness of the research findings, one of the most important things I did was directly put forward some of my initial understandings and impressions to the participants for confirmation or clarification in our regular conversations. During the data collection in Phase 1, I tried to meet all the participants on social occasions such as for lunch to seek clarification related to their interview accounts. I asked them to check and confirm the interview transcripts after interviews were transcribed (Krefting, 1991). When I interviewed 15 of the original 22 participants, including six longitudinal study participants, in Phase 3, I again confirmed my initial findings with them. In the longitudinal research phase, I made repeated attempts to focus some part of the regular conversations on language learning, which helped me to reflect on the different accounts that the participants produced on similar topics at different times. These attempts also helped my critical reading of different accounts and my assessment of how changing life circumstances impacted on the participants’ storytelling and how as language learners they had evolved, particularly in terms of strategy use.

With the above-mentioned steps, my involvement enabled me to go more deeply into the participants’ language learning experiences in Hong Kong without undermining the trustworthiness of the findings contained in the book.

Organization of the Book

This book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 2 briefly reviews LLS research and then puts forward an argument for adopting a sociocultural perspective in LLS research. As there are many reviews of LLS research, this review does not duplicate such efforts. Rather, it aims to situate sociocultural LLS research in the context of shifting language learning research paradigms and an increasingly problematized field of LLS research. It also introduces the research framework that guided the inquiry and data analysis. Chapter 3 presents contextual conditions on the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. The chapter describes how mainland Chinese students came to Hong Kong and what kind of challenges they faced.

Chapter 4 presents findings about the research participants’ strategy use in acquiring English on the Chinese mainland from the study conducted in Phase 1. The focus of the chapter is to create a picture of how various social agents mediated the participants’ language learning process on the Chinese mainland through the use of cultural artefacts and sociocultural discourses, highlighting the interaction of learner choice and contextual conditions underlying their strategy use.

Chapter 5 looks into the participants’ shifting strategy use and its underlying processes in Hong Kong using experiential accounts collected from Phase 3. Before a description is given of the study and its findings, the participants’ perceptions of Hong Kong are summarized to set the scene. Then it is demonstrated how contextual conditions mediated the participants’ language learning, leading to changes in their strategy use and learning discourses. Chapters 4 and 5 present an overall view of the participants’ shifting strategy use as a group in two learning contexts and also illustrate the underlying interaction of agency and contextual conditions.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Strategic Language Learning by Xuesong Gao. Copyright © 2010 Xuesong (Andy) Gao. Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
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