2.1 Participants
The participants selected for this study consisted of 57 sophomores from a Chinese university situated in the large
north-western city of Xi’an. These full-time undergraduate non-English-major students are all homogenous Chinese,
majoring in computer application in the computer science department. Their age ranged from 19 to 21. As well, they
started their tertiary EFL learning in the fall of 2000 and were observed during the fall term of 2001 when they were
studying English at Band 3 (the third term). They expected to complete language studies after two years and four bands
(Note 2) before taking the nationwide language proficiency test—the College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) to be held
in June 2002.
The sample was chosen from approximately 3,000 students of the Year 2000 student population. Though simply a
convenience sample, the rationale underlying the purposeful selection of such a sample was that the subjects were
drawn from a comparatively large class of 57 students. Usually class sizes varied from 30 to 45 students in a “natural
class” (Note 3) in the English language courses in this university.