An Investigation Into English Learning Styles Of Vocational School Non-English Majors And Its Implications For English Teaching

Since the 1970s, researches on the second language teaching and learning have shifted their attention from examining the methods of teaching to investigating the individual differences (ID) of the learners. As one of the important factors in ID, learning styles has attracted more and more researchers'attention.In the west, a lot of studies have been carried out on the relations of learning styles to the process of foreign language learning. The studies on this topic are relatively late in China, but the Chinese researchers'achievements are fruitful. Besides introducing and discussing theories and research findings on learning styles of west researchers, more and more empirical studies have been conducted recently in China. However, most of the empirical studies choose university students as their subjects; few researches have been done on the learning styles of the students of vocational schools which are newly born in China. Moreover, most of the previous studies took Reid's Perceptual Learning Style Preference questionnaire as their instrument; seldom used Oxford's Style Analysis Survey (SAS) to test students'learning styles. Therefore, this study is designed to investigate the vocational school non-English major students'learning styles with Oxford's SAS.Oxford's Style Analysis Survey (SAS) and the achievement scores in CET-4 were used in this study as instruments to collect quantitative data. The questionnaire was used to elicit the subjects'general learning style preferences. Achievement scores in CET-4 were used to investigate the relationship between subjects'learning styles and their English achievement. The quantitative data were then analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Science 13.0 (SPSS 13.0) using descriptive statistics, Independent-Sample T Test, and Pearson correlation analysis.Results indicate that vocational school non-English majors have a variety of learning style preferences. From sensory learning styles dimension, they like visual style best; from personality learning styles dimension, the introverted style is more favorable and the extroverted style is the least preferable one among the eleven learning styles; from cognitive learning styles dimension, the subjects prefer intuitive-random, closure-oriented and global styles. And gender differences do exist in learning style preferences. However, no significant relationship is found between subjects'learning styles and their English achievement.In conclusion, the results from this study provide insightful implications for vocational school EFL teaching. Teachers should identify and meet students'learning style preferences, and be aware of their own teaching styles and try their best to create teacher-student style matching. Both teachers and students should accept gender-related differences and use style results in learning instruction. And students should learn to use the styles that may facilitate and promote successful learning, and avoid using of the styles that have negative influences on particular learning task.