Investment in Learning English: A Case Study of Chinese LOTE Learners

Abstract

With the increasing global status of China’s economy, languages other than English education (LOTE) in China has experienced an unprecedented expansion size. The importance of offering language programs is particularly relevant and geographically significant in China’s border provinces. Yunnan, China’s Southwest border province, has been discursively positioned as an ideal space for cultivating South Asian and Southeast Asian language learners for China’s cross-cultural communication. However, while majoring in LOTE, Chinese students have to prove their proficiency in English both for academic attainment and employment prospect. This study examines how English is ideologically embedded in the learning process of LOTE learners in the context of China’s socioeconomic transformation and regional integration with its neighbouring countries. Adopting the concept of language, investment and ideology (Darvin & Norton, 2015), the study explores the English learning experiences of Chinese undergraduates majoring in LOTE in a Chinese border university in Yunnan. Findings reveal how LOTE learners attach great importance on English and see English as a symbolic capital which can be translated into academic credits and facilite their future educational and social mobility. Findings also demonstrate that LOTE learners take advantage of their learning strategies in English and transfer their learning strategies into their LOTE learning process. Based on the findings of the study, it is argued that LOTE students can be empowered to enhance their language proficiency by LOTE in the process of investment learning English and their investment can help them acquire additional multilingual ability and multiple identities. The study can prove pedagogical implications for curriculum of LOTE.