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Learning styles and perceptual patterns for English /i/ and /ɪ/ among Chinese college students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2015

XIAOHU YANG ,
FENG SHI ,
XIANGJUN LIU  and
YONG ZHAO
XIAOHU YANG*
Affiliation:
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
FENG SHI
Affiliation:
Nankai University
XIANGJUN LIU
Affiliation:
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
YONG ZHAO
Affiliation:
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Xiaohu Yang, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examined whether learning styles, along with age of starting English learning and length of English learning, are related to perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ among Chinese college students who learn English as a foreign language. A total of 83 Chinese college students with different learning styles as measured by Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (1985) and 16 native speakers of American English identified the vowels in a synthetic beat–bit continuum. The results revealed that the Chinese participants’ perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ varied with their learning styles. The participants with Kolb's (1985) assimilative and divergent learning styles were more likely to exhibit perceptual patterns resembling those of the American participants than were the participants with convergent and accommodative learning styles. Furthermore, of Kolb's four learning modes, reflective observation had a facilitative effect on the participants’ perception, whereas active experimentation was more likely to cause difficulties; abstract conceptualization and concrete experience bore little relation to the perception of these two sounds. In addition, length of English learning played a critical part in the development of English /i/–/ɪ/ perception. However, age of starting English learning in foreign language conditions was not as crucial as suggested by earlier studies on speech perception in second language conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 2016 , pp. 673 - 701
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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