The previous chapters have given an overall presentation and interpretation of mainland Chinese undergraduates' strategy use in learning English on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong, revealing the extent and ways in which their strategy use shifts as a group. The present chapter focuses on the longitudinal case study participants and their language learning experiences during the follow-up phase (Phase 2, September 2004 to July 2006). This longitudinal follow-up study allowed me to explore the ongoing interaction between agency and contextual conditions as it was happening, providing greater depth and insights into the participants' strategic language learning than those reported in their retrospective accounts.

This study phase initially involved six participants (see Table 6.1). However, at the end of the first year, two participants from the Faculty of Business decided to suspend their participation due to their heavy academic workload. This chapter contains biographical case studies of four learners: Liu, Zhixuan, Yu and Mengshi. Although Zhixuan left Hong Kong for one year of exchange studies in the United States, I had lived with him in the same student hall for a year, experiencing what a mainland Chinese student might experience in the hall. For this reason, I decided to include his case in this chapter. It should be noted that many mainland Chinese undergraduates went for exchange studies during their stay in the university as overseas opportunities were considered one of the main incentives attracting them to study in Hong Kong. The inclusion of his case was also an effort to represent what mainland Chinese students could possibly experience in terms of language learning.