Strategy Use by Nonnative English‐Speaking Students in an MBA Program: Not Business as Usual!

Abstract

Despite the long‐standing interest in strategy use and language learning, little attention has been given to how social context may constrain or facilitate this use or the development of new strategies. Drawing on data from a longitudinal qualitative study, we discuss this issue in relation to the experiences of Chinese students from the People's Republic of China, who, following study in English for Academic Purposes courses, registered in a Masters in Business Administration program in a Canadian university. Specifically, we focus on how the contact with the native‐English‐speaking Canadian students mediated the Chinese students' strategy use in 3 domains: reading, class lectures, and team work. In contrast to the rather simplistic notion evoked in certain portrayals of the good language learner, strategy use as reported herein emerges as a complex, socially situated phenomenon, bound up with issues related to personal identity (Leki, 2001; Norton, 1997, 2000; Spack, 1997).