A Study On The English Learning Strategies And Their Correlations With The Scores Of Test For English Majors Of Band Four

How English learners can learn English well has always been a very interesting topic toall the English learners. At the same time, this issue is also a focal point of many parents andEnglish teachers. Therefore, the researcher employed empirical methods to study thecorrelations between many English learning strategies and the scores of Test for EnglishMajors of Band4(TEM-4) for the main purpose of helping English majors to learn Englisheffectively by employing English learning strategies wisely.The questionnaire research method and the interview research method are employed inthis research. In total,253subjects were surveyed and12subjects were interviewed by theresearcher in this research. The questionnaires employed in this research consists of threesub-questionnaires, namely the questionnaire of Wen Qiufang’s English learning strategies,the questionnaire of Rebecca L. Oxford’s English learning strategies and the questionnaireof the researcher’s English learning strategies which is designed from micro perspectives oflistening, speaking, reading, writing, translation, grammar and diligence. There are fourreasons for this kind of combination. Firstly, the three questionnaires are compensatory toeach other; therefore, all of them are employed. Secondly, from micro perspectives, asystematic research on English learning strategies can be conducted. Thirdly, the influenceof the mother tongue on English learning can be studied. Of course, the mother tongue isChinese in this research. Finally, the correlational coefficients of various English learningstrategies with the scores of TEM-4can be compared. Besides, the validity analyses and thereliability analyses of the questionnaires of this research are also conducted.The statistic software Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS) version13.0wasemployed in this research to conduct the reliability analyses, the descriptive data analyses ofthe English-learning strategies as well as the correlational data analyses between variousEnglish-learning strategies and the scores of TEM-4. Besides, the independent-samples Ttests between the male English majors and the female English majors are conducted toanalyze whether there are some significant differences between the two genders on theemployments of various English learning strategies that are studied in this research. There are seven major findings in this research. Firstly, it is discovered that theemployment rates of the English-learning strategies by the English major undergraduates aregenerally low, at around “sometimes-employ” level. Secondly, it is discovered in this researchthat there is significant difference between the male English major undergraduates and thefemale English major undergraduates on the employments of the using-mother-tonguestrategies, and the male English major undergraduates employ the using-mother tonguestrategies more frequently than the female English major undergraduates do. Thirdly, excepton the employments of the using-mother-tongue strategies, there are no significantdifferences between the male English major undergraduates and the female English majorundergraduates on the employments of the English learning strategies that are studied in thisresearch. Fourthly, it is found out that the employments of the diligent strategies by the maleEnglish major undergraduates have significantly positive and strong correlation with theirscores of TEM-4. Fifthly, it is discovered in this research that the female English majors’TEM-4scores have significantly positive correlations with the translation strategies, thediligent strategies, the form-focused strategies, the listening-strategies, the speaking strategies,the memory strategies, the reading strategies, the metacognitive strategies, the cognitivestrategies and the meaning-focused strategies. Sixly, it is discovered that the female Englishmajors’ TEM-4scores have significantly negative correlations with the using-mother-tonguestrategies and the grammar strategies. Sevenly, the common characteristics of the excellentEnglish learners are discovered throuth interviews: I, the excellent English learners likeEnglish, and they have strong motivations for learning English. II, they are diligent inlearning English. III, they have clear goals of learning English. IV, they are good atemploying English learning strategies. All these findings are consistent with the data analysisresults of the questionnaires that are employed in this research.Finally, some suggestions on English learning are offered for the English majorundergraduates in China in this research. Furthermore, some recommendations are alsoprovided in this research for university English teachers on how to teach English effectivelyto their English major undergraduats.