Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university

This research examined why bilingual Mongolian students chose to learn Japanese as their foreign language at university and how their perceived experiences' impact on foreign language policy and language planning implementation from university, classroom, to self-learning level. Drawing upon da...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Na, Jian
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61538/
_version_ 1848799886447738880
author Na, Jian
author_facet Na, Jian
author_sort Na, Jian
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This research examined why bilingual Mongolian students chose to learn Japanese as their foreign language at university and how their perceived experiences' impact on foreign language policy and language planning implementation from university, classroom, to self-learning level. Drawing upon data collected through analysis of documents, student questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the study found that the enactment of China’s systemic College Japanese Curriculum from one eastern Mongolian university was not a matter of simple implementation but the result of a more complex process, which changes in language context to shape students’ language attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, motivations and actions as regards to Japanese learning. The research, therefore, argues that multi-level contents and cause-effect sequences intertwined to shape Mongolian students’ language cognitions and behaviours of Japanese teaching and learning. The research findings show many factors worked together to facilitate students’ favourable attitudes towards the foreign language policy and language planning implementation at the institutional context, such as more foreign language options, ‘privileged attitude’ of Mongolian identity, intrinsic and instrumental learning motivations, and language similarity. The levels of contextual change tensions caused challenges in the actual classroom instructions, such as students negatively responding in the appraisal of textbooks, preference for the language used in class, reflection on classroom interaction, and questioned the relevance of expected teaching techniques. Moreover, language comparisons at students' individual learning stage are shown to confuse Japanese learning in errors, mistakes and difficulties. Thus, despite students’ general endorsement of and favourable attitudes towards the proposed implementation of foreign language policy and language planning, all students in this study experienced some changes in language behaviours. The findings suggest that the implementation of a top-down foreign language policy and language planning is mediated through an interplay of challenges at different language contexts with the major impetus for how students make sense of and enact the language behaviour, which relates more to the strength of their previous and current language cognitions, motivations, and practices. Without students’ language attitudes, perceptions and beliefs on foreign language policy and language planning, there will be insufficiency in ensuring the enactment of practices. The research, therefore, explores knowledge on wider influential factors and a deeper context of foreign language curriculum implementation and how language cognitions, behaviours, and motivations are interpreted and translated by students, teachers and administrators in the minority university context. The findings also provide information to administrators and frontline teachers concerning the ideal language contexts.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:42:47Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-61538
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:42:47Z
publishDate 2020
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-615382025-02-28T15:03:05Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61538/ Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university Na, Jian This research examined why bilingual Mongolian students chose to learn Japanese as their foreign language at university and how their perceived experiences' impact on foreign language policy and language planning implementation from university, classroom, to self-learning level. Drawing upon data collected through analysis of documents, student questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the study found that the enactment of China’s systemic College Japanese Curriculum from one eastern Mongolian university was not a matter of simple implementation but the result of a more complex process, which changes in language context to shape students’ language attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, motivations and actions as regards to Japanese learning. The research, therefore, argues that multi-level contents and cause-effect sequences intertwined to shape Mongolian students’ language cognitions and behaviours of Japanese teaching and learning. The research findings show many factors worked together to facilitate students’ favourable attitudes towards the foreign language policy and language planning implementation at the institutional context, such as more foreign language options, ‘privileged attitude’ of Mongolian identity, intrinsic and instrumental learning motivations, and language similarity. The levels of contextual change tensions caused challenges in the actual classroom instructions, such as students negatively responding in the appraisal of textbooks, preference for the language used in class, reflection on classroom interaction, and questioned the relevance of expected teaching techniques. Moreover, language comparisons at students' individual learning stage are shown to confuse Japanese learning in errors, mistakes and difficulties. Thus, despite students’ general endorsement of and favourable attitudes towards the proposed implementation of foreign language policy and language planning, all students in this study experienced some changes in language behaviours. The findings suggest that the implementation of a top-down foreign language policy and language planning is mediated through an interplay of challenges at different language contexts with the major impetus for how students make sense of and enact the language behaviour, which relates more to the strength of their previous and current language cognitions, motivations, and practices. Without students’ language attitudes, perceptions and beliefs on foreign language policy and language planning, there will be insufficiency in ensuring the enactment of practices. The research, therefore, explores knowledge on wider influential factors and a deeper context of foreign language curriculum implementation and how language cognitions, behaviours, and motivations are interpreted and translated by students, teachers and administrators in the minority university context. The findings also provide information to administrators and frontline teachers concerning the ideal language contexts. 2020-12-11 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61538/1/NAJIAN%20PhD%204197898.pdf Na, Jian (2020) Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Mongolian students language acquisition bilingual students foreign language policy Japanese as a second language
spellingShingle Mongolian students
language acquisition
bilingual students
foreign language policy
Japanese as a second language
Na, Jian
Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title_full Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title_fullStr Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title_full_unstemmed Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title_short Bilingual Mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern Mongolian university
title_sort bilingual mongolian students’ attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs on the process of foreign language policy and language planning implementation in an eastern mongolian university
topic Mongolian students
language acquisition
bilingual students
foreign language policy
Japanese as a second language
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61538/