Resumen de Factors influencing Chinese language learners' strategy use
This survey study, which involved 134 language learners enrolled in first-year Chinese as a foreign language classrooms in the US universities, intended to address the research question, ‘Do learners' strategy use differ based on the following learner differences: (1) gender; (2) home language/culture; and (3) number of other foreign languages studied’? MANOVA tests were run using the participants' responses in Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning surveys and the background surveys. The MANOVA test results showed that there was no significant effect for gender on strategy use. However, the other two factors, home language/culture and number of other foreign languages studied, had significant effects on strategy use. The participants who were Chinese heritage language learners used the metacognitive, affective and social categories of strategies less frequently compared to those who were non-heritage language learners. Furthermore, the participants who studied one other foreign language prior to Chinese used the four categories of strategies, such as cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social strategies, less frequently than those who studied two or more other foreign languages prior to Chinese.
