A Study On The English Learning Strategies Of Middle School Students In Guangxi

Learning is a lifelong task. How to learn has long been a major content for the researchers in the educational circles. Nowadays, more and more educators and psychologists have gradually realized that the fundamental goal of education is to make students independent, autonomous and efficient learners. However, for the last several decades, influenced by Behaviorism psychology, the emphasis has primarily been put on the part of teaching rather than that of learning in the field of second/foreign language instruction. Meanwhile, traditional curricula have tended to concentrate on imparting knowledge and skills to students, neglecting the teaching of how to learn. All that has led to students'ineffective learning. Since the middle of 1970s, a lot of research has been done on language learning strategies abroad. Many educators and linguists such as Oxford (1990), O'Malley and Chamot (2001) and Cohen (2000) highly emphasized the importance of language learning strategies in making language learning more efficient. In China, the research of language learning strategies began at the beginning of 1980s. Many researchers (e.g., Wen Qiufang, 1997; Wang Lifei, 2000) have engaged in the study of this field and some achievements have been yielded. The study of language learning strategies of middle school students still remains at an early stage. The English Curriculum Standards (2001) states, "The task of basic education is to stimulate and cultivate students'interest of learning English, to help them build up the self-confidence and to help them develop their effective English learning strategies and ultimately to foster their self-directed learning ability and cooperative spirit, thus, to lay a good foundation for their lifelong learning and development."All these fully imply that language learning strategies are already placed in a distinctive position. On the basis of the former relevant studies on language learning strategies at home and abroad, and in the light of the theories of language learning strategies by Oxford(1990), O'Malley and Chamot ( 2001) and Cohen (2000), we did a survey on students'English learning strategies used by 508 middle school students in 7 middle schools in a village, a town and a city in Guangxi. The instruments employed in this survey include a written questionnaire and a follow-up interview. The items of the survey include cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, communicative strategies and resources strategies. The findings of the analyses include: (1)The strategy adopted by middle school students in Guangxi is unsatisfactory. (2) There is a significant difference in the overall strategy use between boys and girls. The frequency of strategy use of girl students is higher than that of boy students, especially for the affective strategies and communicative strategies. (3) The frequency of strategy use of the more successful learners is higher than that of the less successful ones. (4) There is a positive correlation between language proficiency and strategy use. This indicates that strategy use has a great impact on English proficiency. (5) No statistically significant differences are found between any two districts of the three districts for cognitive strategies and affective strategies. With regard to communicative strategies, there is a statistically significant difference among the three districts. While in using metacognitive strategies and resources strategies, statistically significant differences are found among the village school, the town schools and the city schools. No statistically significant differences are found between the schools of both the town and the city. (6) Students have low awareness of language learning strategies and teachers have inadequate knowledge of language learning strategies. Through the investigation, we believe that strategy use is of great importance with the continuous development of foreign language education nowadays. It accords with the views of scientific development and the demands of humanistic education. It is a requirement for us to raise the educational quality. Based on the results and discussions of the survey, we provide some suggestions. Firstly, teachers should be provided with strategy training; they may receive language learning strategies training by various ways in order to better deliver effective learning strategy instruction to students. Secondly, students'strategy training should be concerned; they should be trained to know how, when and why to choose the language learning strategies for the purpose of learning English independently and effectively.