A Study Of Developmental Changes In College English Learning Strategies

In China, much attention has been paid to language pedagogy in order to improve English learners', especially college students' English proficiency level. However, the effect is far from satisfactory. The main problem lies in the teachers' overemphasis on teaching materials, teaching methodology, learning environment while ignoring the students' factors, and the students' excessive dependence on teachers. They think their English teachers will teach them all, and thus blame their teachers for their failure in English study. They seldom attempt to attribute their failure to themselves, such as their motivations, their attitudes towards English learning and especially their learning strategies.Learning strategies mainly refer to the learning methods, learning techniques or learning regulations taken by the students in order to obtain certain learning goals. In the past few decades, it has been an ever-lasting research focus in the field of teaching pedagogy, teaching psychology and learning theories for its correlation with the learning efficiency.In 1960s, western researchers began the study of learning strategies focusing on the following aspects: 1) strategies used by good language learners; 2) the difference between good language learners and poor language learners in strategy use; 3) the relationship between the use of strategies and second language proficiency; 4) factors affecting the use of strategies; 5) ways of strategy training and their effect.With the shift of the world's foreign language teaching research focus from "how to teach" to "how to learn", from "the teachers" to "the learners" since 1960s and 1970s, research in this field in China has been gradually conducted since 1980s and a certain development has been made. They have probed the relationship between language learning strategies and vocabulary learning, reading comprehension, listening comprehension and writing skills, and the relationship between strategies and learners' beliefs about language learning as well. However, most of their studies are static, not developmental. They either study the frequencies of language learning strategies or their influences on English achievements. But arethe English learning strategies used by the English majors and non-English majors the same? What are the characteristics of their use of learning strategies of college students at their different learning stages? Do they have any preferences to the learning strategies, and are their preferences developmental? If yes, are their changes regular? And what are their developmental patterns? The answers to the above questions are what the present study is to explore.The study is from the point of college students learning English as a foreign language, and based on learning strategies theoretically. The instrument is a questionnaire and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) is used to analyze the data. The purpose of the present study is to find out the characteristics of the use of the learning strategies at different learning stages and to probe their developmental changes in order that teachers can help students to choose, manage and improve their strategies so as to improve their teaching quality; and the college students can improve their study efficiency and their English proficiency through the improving of their English learning strategies. Therefore, this study may shed some light on both English teaching and learning in colleges and universities in the future.The thesis first briefly introduces the study background, the significance and rationale of the present study, and its outline. Chapter one presents a literature review concerning the study in this field. In this part, the writer firstly reviews the study background and the findings in this field at home and abroad, then summarizes the definitions, classifications of language learning strategies, and characteristics of learning strategy system given by some influential researchers, and methods used in investigating of the use of language learning strategies. In chapter two, the writer des...