A Study Of English Learning Strategies

This article analyzes the uses of learning strategies and the main affective factors that influence the uses of the students' learning strategies of 166 non-English major students in our college by means of quantitative analysis and questionnaires on socio-psychological factors and learning strategies.The research results indicate that (1) The students in our college lack the characteristics that the good language learners possess, for example, they have little interest in English and are passively involved in classroom learning activities and have little estimate in their scores etc. (2) No matter on general or on individuals, the learning strategies employed most frequently by the students are cognitive strategies and formal practice strategies, followed by meta-cognitive strategies, with functional practice and social/affective strategies the least frequently used; (3) the use of learning strategies is greatly governed by the target language learning environment, teaching methods and the students' English proficiency; and (4) learners' affective factors, such as attitude, motivation, self-esteem and anxiety etc, have the impact on their use of learning strategies and English proficiency. From the investigation we can get some implications for English teaching: (1) It is necessary for teachers of English to introduce learning strategies and train them to use strategies to cultivate their awareness of learning strategies, especially the serf-identity degree of functional practice and social/affective strategies and to help them to use all kinds of leaning strategies with pertinence, neatly and felicitously according to their language development stage and their specific learning tasks in their study activities; (2)Taking a correct attitude toward the students' errors. Affective factors should be fully considered and students' errors should be corrected with the help of teachers' illuminationand guidance so as to train their abilities to analyze and solve problems and to improve their interest in English; (3) Providing the students with more interesting input through many media and channels so as to improve their English listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation abilities thoroughly.