Looking At Chinese Students’ Strategy Use for English Learning and Use in the Asian Context: An Ecological and Complexity Perspective

Abstract

Against the background of educational globalization, this article first points out the substantially increasing number of Chinese students studying in Asian regions which are different socio-cultural-linguistic contexts from the western Anglophone countries, and calls on the second language (L2) education and English language teaching (ELT) research field to pay adequate attention to these Chinese students’ acculturation to the Asian contexts. A research project is then proposed as an exploratory study to investigate the Chinese students’ acculturation process at Assumption University of Thailand, which is a typical case of a multicultural and multilingual Asian context of education, through their use of strategies in English learning and use. Basing his educational philosophy on ecologism, the author suggests the adoption of a complexity perspective on L2 learning as a way of interpreting the issues involved in the research. This suggestion is subsequently supported by an overview of language learning strategy (LLS) research, an overview of the development of complexity theory (C-T) and its applications to SLA and L2 education research, and by a pilot study. The author then introduces R. Oxford’s Strategic Self-Regulation (S²R) Model as a strategy framework that is appropriate for an integration with C-T for research. Lastly the author outlines the research methodology and wraps up the article by calling for more efforts to establish an ecological prespective in the L2 education and ELT research fields.