A Study Of Finance English Learning Strategies

Foreign or second language (L2) learning strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps, ortechniques students use --often consciously --to improve their progress in apprehending,internalizing, and using the L2 (Oxford, 1990b). From the middle of 1960s, the researches onEnglish (as a second language) learning strategies began. Many researchers indicate that theeffective uses of English learning strategies facilitate the learners' abilities to learn andacademic achievements to some extent. Since 1980s, the theories and research results has beenintroduced into China, and many researchers and teachers start to investigate and study the useof English learning strategies among Chinese students. The college English learners are thesubjects in most cases, and no research focuses on the Finance English learners.To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Finance English learners, this thesis, hoping tofill the gap, attempts to reveal how and how often language learning strategies are used instudents' Finance English learning, and whether significant differences exist between studentswith different English proficiency, majors and gender.On the basis of Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning and Oxford's theories, a setof questionnaire for FE learning strategies for this survey is designed. 119 students who havetaken the course of Finance English attend this study, and 10 students and two teachers acceptthe interview. After the data are collected, SPSS 13.0 (Statistical Program for Social Sciences)and Excel are used to process and analyze the data.The result shows most students are unaware of the explicit learning strategies;the learners usecompensation strategies most frequently, and they use memory strategies least frequently. Inaddition, learners with different English proficiency differ in memory, cognitive andmetacognitive strategies;learners in different majors differ in memory and affective strategies;and male and female learners perform differently in compensation, metacognitive and socialstrategies.By a discussion of the results, some suggestions for teaching are posed, (1) implementing thestrategy training is necessary;(2) the strategy training should be diversified, and (3)mix-gendered study groups should be encouraged.