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

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.