Empirical Study On Correlation Between Cognitive Style And Learning Strategy And English Learners' Language Proficiency

Nowadays the focus of English Teaching researches has been shifted from how to teach to how to learn. And English teaching is no longer teacher-centered, but student-centered. The aim of teaching is to teach students to learn effectively in order to ultimately realize autonomous study for life. Thus the factors which affect English learning have been thoroughly researched, among which the factors of cognitive style and learning strategy have aroused a lot of attention. There is a positive correlation between cognitive style and English achievement. And the choice of various learning strategies also greatly influences English proficiency. Excellent learners know how to adopt different learning strategies flexibly, and change their cognitive styles in dealing with different learning tasks in different learning contexts.A number of psychologists, applied linguists and educationalists have carried out widespread and thorough researches on the correlation between cognitive style and English teaching, especially in the field of the key model of cognitive style: field-dependent/field-independent. While the area of learning strategy research has been very prosperous, the research on cognitive style began much later in China, and the research subjects are mainly concerned with primary pupils and middle school students rather than college students. Obviously, stability of college learners' cognitive style is somewhat different from that of pupils and middle school students. What's more, there is a lack of research in analyzing the relationship between cognitive style, learning strategy and English language proficiency, thus it is necessary to do something in this aspect.The purpose of this thesis is to find out the correlation between cognitive style, learning strategy and English proficiency. And the thesis mainly refers to two aspects. Firstly, this thesis has summarized and analyzed the relevant theories about cognitive style, learning strategy, the relationship between them as well as the relationship between former two factors and language proficiency. All these research findings of previous researchers serve as a theoretical foundations of this research. Secondly, the most widely-used research tool--The Embedded Figures Test was adopted, and the empirical research of cognitive style test was conducted among 180 college sophomores from Shanghai Institute of Posts and Telecoms. And then contrastive experiment training was conducted in the comparative groups to enhance the use of learning strategies according to the questionnaire results of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL), and to cultivate the dual cognitive styles. The scores of English Final Test were used as reference of English achievement. And the instrument of SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used to conduct statistical analysis.Finally, the findings of research have revealed that:there is a significant correlation between cognitive style and learning strategy. And the students with different cognitive styles will choose different learning strategies. Cultivating the awareness of cognitive style and using learning strategy frequently facilitate the improvement of English achievement. All this proves the experimental training based on different cognitive styles is positive and effective in practice. Besides, the limitation of the present research and suggestions for future study in this field are put forward.All in all, some implications can be obtained from the above findings. On one hand, teachers should instruct students to use learning strategies appropriately according to different cognitive styles; on the other hand, students need to practice learning strategies and develop doual cognitive styles in order to realize autonomous study.