A Troubling Tale of Two English Learners on the Chinese Mainland

This paper describes the English-learning experiences of two students from a low-ranking college on the Chinese mainland. Using a biographical method, the paper explores a group of English learners’ English-learning experiences prior to and after their arrival at the college. By focusing on two learners, the paper illustrates the profound impact that a competitive educational context can have on individual students’ language learning approaches, identity, and relationships with teachers and peers in the learning process. It reveals that these learners adopted an exam-oriented learning approach to pursue being the winners in the sociocultural context of academic competition. In the process, teachers played an important role in the learners’ adoption of learning strategies, internalization of learning discourses, and co-construction of identities. Meanwhile, the tense peer relationships caused by the academic competition seem to have prevented them from choosing alternative learning approaches and strategies.