Effects Of Guided Learning Plan-Assisted Text Preview Activities On Junior High School Students’ English Grades

This paper was undertaken to study the effects of guided learning plan-assisted text preview activities on junior middle school students’ English grades.The theoretical bases of this study are constructivism theory,humanism theory and autonomous learning theory.The significance of this study is to provide effective guidance for English learners’preview methods,so as to master the basic knowledge of books and improve their English learning ability.The specific research questions of this study are as follows:(1)What are the effects of guided learning plan-assisted text preview activities on junior high school students’ English grades?(2)What are the differences in the effects of guided learning plan-assisted text preview activities on the English grades between male and female students?(3)What are the differences in the effects of guided learning plan-assisted text preview activities on the English grades of junior high school students at different levels(high,medium and low)?The participants in this study are 68 Grade 8 students from Nanjing No.1 junior high school in Jiangsu Province,with 35 students in the Experimental Class(EC)and 33 students in the Control class(CC).The instruments of this study were two English tests and an interview.Before and after the 2-month of teaching experiment,the English tests were given,which would serve as pre-test and post-test in this research.During the teaching experiment,guided learning plans were adopted in EC’s text preview,while the traditional text preview without the help of guided learning plans was adopted in CC.After the post-test,an interview was conducted among 12 students selected from EC to know more about the usage of guided learning plans.The interview was conducted in Chinese and recorded for further analysis.All the data in this study,including compositions in the two tests and the interview,were collected by the teacher in the class.Also,the data were processed by SPSS 21.0 with independent-samples t test analysis and paired-samples t test analysis.The major findings from this study are as follows:Firstly,the guided learning plan-assisted text preview can promote students’English grades effectively.The post-test result of EC was 5.09 higher than that of CC,with a significance of.023,showing a significant difference.It shows that with the help of learning guidance plans,students can complete preview task smoothly,and in this process,they can develop their ability of autonomic learning,which can benefit to achieve high grades in English tests.Secondly,there is a significant difference in the effects of guided learning plan-assisted preview on English grades between male and female students,and the effect on males is higher than that on females.This may be because the usage of overall learning strategies of males is worse than that of females.Males are more dependent on teachers in the process of English learning,and they need more guidance and supervision from teachers.Given the above situation,the usage of a guided learning plan in preview can not only provide males guidance on learning strategies,but also monitor the preview situation.Therefore,the application of a guided learning plan in preview has a greater effect on males’English grades.Thirdly,there is a significant difference in the effects of guided learning plan-assisted preview on English grades among different levels of students(high achievers,medium achievers and low achievers).Among them,the guided learning plan-assisted text preview has greatly improved the English performance of middle and low-level students,but has no significant effect on the performance of high-level students.The mean difference of high achievers between pre-test and post-test is 3.33,while the mean differences of low achievers and medium achievers between pre-test and post-test are 4.00 and 8.47 respectively.Compared with high-level students,middle and low-level students have more room for progress in English learning.Also,they can master basic knowledge better by using a guided learning plan to assist with text preview and are more willing to participate in English learning.While high-level students who are smart and eager to study have strong learning consciousness,they can quickly master text preview methods suitable for them without the guidance of guided learning plans.The implications of this study for English learning are as follows:firstly,both teachers and students should be aware of the importance of preview in English learning and try to take advantage of guided learning plans in preview properly.Secondly,teachers should fully consider the differences in English learning between male and female students and make different arrangements accordingly.Thirdly,for low and medium-levels students,teachers should affirm their progress in using guided learning plan-aided text preview,and high-level students can be arranged assignments with higher requirements to help them make more progress.This study also has some limitations:Firstly,the number of experimental research samples is small,and the experimental results may not apply to all groups.Secondly,the experimental time is limited.Thirdly,the design of the guided learning plan is not divided in detail enough.The suggestions for the future study are as follows.In future related research,we should expand the number and scope of sample research,prolong the experimental cycle and divide the content of the guided learning plan in detail,which will be conducive to the accuracy of experimental research.