Multilingual Learners’ Grammatical and Pragmatic Awareness in Chinese EFL Context: From Three Layers of Language Awareness Perspective

Abstract

The research was aimed to explore multilingual learners ‘grammatical and pragmatic awareness from perspective of three layers of language awareness: perception, noticing and understanding in Chinese EFL context.
 The findings reveal that firstly, there exists negative correlation between three layers of grammatical and pragmatic awareness of multilingual learners with low English proficiency; however, there exists positive correlation between three layers of grammatical and pragmatic awareness of multilingual learners with higher proficiency levels. Secondly, on grammatical awareness, there is not a significant difference between Mongolian multilingual learners; on pragmatic awareness, in perception and understanding layer, there exists a significant difference, but in noticing layer, there is not. There were not significant differences between Han Chinese bilinguals and Mongolian multilinguals on grammatical awareness in perception, noticing and understanding as well as perceptional aspect of pragmatic awareness; however, there are significant differences in noticing and understanding. Thirdly, there is a low positive correlation between pragmatic awareness and pragmatic competence of Mongolian learners with different proficiency level.
 The present research findings indicate the necessity of developing ethnic minority students’ multilingual awareness by training of multilingual teachers and of implementing multilingual pedagogical approaches, and highlight significance of increasing teachers’ language awareness by further development of language teacher education and cultivating learners’ multilingual competence in EFL contexts.