L2 LEARNER VARIABLES AND ENGLISH ACHIEVEMENT - A STUDY OF TERTIARY-LEVEL ENGLISH MAJORS IN CHINA

This paper reports a study in a Chinese context of L2 learner variable s and their relationship to English achievement. To establish the vari ables, a questionnaire was administered to 242 students, the entire co hort of second-year English majors from five tertiary institutions in Nanjing and Shanghai. The subjects' Chinese and English language profi ciency on entry to tertiary education was established through scores o n the matriculation examinations. Their English achievement was establ ished by their scores on the nation-wide standardized English proficie ncy test taken on completion of their two-year intensive English progr am, the first part of their four-year BA degree. Sixteen learner varia bles were established and a hypothetical causal model was constructed. Relationships within the model and the relationships between learner variables and achievement were then examined through Partial Least Squ ares (PLS) analysis. It was found that six variables had direct effect s on English achievement. Three were traits which existed prior to the students' admission to tertiary education, that is, Sex, and L1 and L 2 Proficiency as measured in the matriculation examinations. The other three were formed by clusters of strategies relating to Vocabulary le arning, Tolerating ambiguity (Risk-taking), the only negative direct e ffect, and Mother tongue avoidance. Management strategies had the stro ngest indirect effect on English achievement. Finally, the direct effe cts of belief variables on strategy variables were examined and found to be strong and consistent. Qualitative data collected from selected subjects are used throughout to provide further insight into and illus trations of the differences in strategy use between more and less succ essful learners.