Causes Of Difficulties With Junior High School Students In Learning English And The Ways To Overcome Them

As one of the primary subjects,English has dual attributes of instrument and humanities.It takes up the heavy responsibilities of cultivating students’ basic English literacy and developing students’ thinking ability and is an important part of citizen quality education.Utilizing the advantages of subject English helps expand students’ international vision,improve language communication skills,and innovative spirit.However,with the deeper content of English subject in junior high stage,some students encounter various difficulties in the process of English learning,and even gradually become “students with learning difficulties”.Poor performance in English subject affects students’ overall development and is not conducive to the improvement of teaching quality.At present,there have been some studies on the causes and strategies of difficulties in learning English with junior high school students in China,but few studies in this field have involved the perspective of second language acquisition(SLA).While English as a foreign language has its unique disciplinary characteristics.Therefore,we should also explore the influencing factors of SLA in addition to general factors affecting various disciplines such as psychology and pedagogy.In light of the limitations of the existing research,this study investigated 106 participants in Grade Eight from School B in an attempt to answer the following questions:(1)What are the causes of difficulties with junior high school students in learning English?(2)What strategies can be adopted to overcome the difficulties with junior high school students in learning English?The questionnaires were distributed and collected centrally from one hundred and six participants,and then the data were processed and analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS)25.0.Besides,in-depth interviews with six participants were conducted to gain in-depth learning of the factors of the difficulties of junior high school students in learning English,each lasting 15-20 minutes.Following the questionnaire and interview,the study selected two participants with typical characteristics of students with learning difficulties to conduct a case study for one semester,aiming to verify whether the strategies proposed were effective.In addition to arousing students’ interest in learning,mobilizing their learning motivation,and cultivating their learning,the study also proposed foreign language learning strategies from the perspective of SLA.The study then obtained the following findings.First,the difficulties in learning English of one hundred and six participants were influenced by both internal and external factors,with the internal factors divided into two aspects: non-intellectual factors and learning strategies,and the external factors mainly influenced by school,teacher and family.Second,internal factors,i.e.,non-intellectual factors and learning strategies,were the main factors that caused the participants’ English learning difficulties.Third,throughout the case implementation,the grades of students A and B showed a steady upward trend and an improvement in aspects of non-intellectual and language learning strategies.The results indicate that the English performance of students with English learning difficulties in junior high school can be improved if the theories of psychology,education and SLA can be reasonably drawn upon,and appropriate strategies are adopted in practice.The purpose of the research is to deeply analyze various causes of the difficulties of junior high school students in learning English and seek effective strategies to overcome them in practice,aiming to improve the current condition of junior high school students with English learning difficulties and provide some insights for promoting the quality of English teaching in China.