A Survey And Analysis Of English Learning Strategies Used By Senior 3 Students

Since the 1970s, the emergence and development of cognitive psychology has laid a theoretic foundation for the research on learning strategies. Previously,guided by behaviorist psychology, foreign language teaching put much emphasis on "how to teach" ,with the study on "how to learn" being neglected, thus resulted in inefficiency in language teaching. At that time, society advanced a new request to education , that is,to cultivate self-dependent learners who absorb new knowledge all by themselves. Set in such situation, the focus on improving learning efficiency for students as well as lessening the burden of obtaining academic success has resulted in researchers studying behaviors specific to Teaming strategies.The contemporary specialists in education and psychologists have realized that the basic purpose of education is to make students independent, autonomous and effective learners, and to teach them how to learn. These learned behaviors result in students' developing effective learning strategies which result in learning efficiency, as well as translate into academic success for the students at any level. Our English Syllabus has labeled "forming efficient learning strategies" one of the most important teaching purposes. The English Curriculum Standard for Chinese High School Students(2005) has made the training of students' learning strategies a key aspect in curriculum objective.According to the new Standard, this text classifies English learning strategies into: cognitive strategies, monitoring strategies,resource strategies and communicative strategies. The questionnaire surveyed the students from Senior three, analyzed the learning strategy state of Senior three students and the effects of individual mental factors on the English learning strategies. The aim of the thesis is to enable the senior 3 students to form the effective individual English learning strategies and the ability of self-learning as well as digesting language knowledge, developing the skills of listening , speaking, reading and writing so as to improve the ability of comprehensive language using. Hopefully, all this may serve as a theoretic basis and actual reference in helping senior three teachers with their teaching improvement under the New Curriculum Criteria. The whole paper is divided into six parts which go as follows:In Chapter One, an overview is given about present conditions of language-teaching and learning and then the significance and the orientation of this research is put forward.In Chapter Two, three basic questions on language-learning strategies are discussed----its definition ,classification and individual mental factors, after which is a review of research results on English learning strategies at home and abroad.In Chapter Three, study methods of English learning strategies In Chapter four, a survey and analysis of English learning strategies used by senior 3 students ,the core part of this paper is presented. This study uses the famous American applied linguist Rebecca L. Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and the interviews among senior 3 students and teachers. This paper is based on a survey of 518 high proficient students and low proficient students among senior 3 students . The survey is analyzed by using SPSS. First, the analysis of the usage condition of senior 3 students shows that they have not yet reached the requirement of the standard. What distinguishes this research from any previous ones is that the result shows the average points of cognitive strategies are the highest among all the four kinds of strategies. There is also a contrast of the strategy usage condition between high score and low score. Secondly, an analysis is carried out about the correlation coefficient between English learning strategies and scores.Finally, the thesis takes the school students of senior three as subjects and uses Learning Strategy Questionnaires and factor-questionnaires as measuring instrument to explore the developmental tendency of learning sand the relationships between learning motivation , learning strategy awareness, learning achievement attribution and leaning efficacy.In Chapter Five, upon the basis of statistical analyses, the main findings are summarized :1. The general usage of learning strategies in English learning among senior 3 students is at an ordinary level. Especially monitoring strategies are not satisfying for senior 3 students.2. Distinct differences arise between high proficient students and low proficient students in the four components of the English strategies.3. Significant correlation coefficient arises between English learning strategies and scores.4. Learning motivation, learning strategy awareness and learning efficacy have a significantly direct effect on learning strategy. Positive attribution has a direct or indirect effect on learning strategy.In Chapter Six, upon the basis of statistical analyses, some suggestions are proposed on cultivating the students' English-learning strategies.