The Influence Of Family Cultural Background On The English Learning Of Non-English Majors At Junior Colleges

The relationship between learning ability and family background hasbeen described as a major breakthrough in the field of English learning inthe 20th century. Many scientists believe that learning ability of childrenfrom the upper social class is much better than that of children from thelower social class. The underlying mechanism for this observation,however, is not well understood. Although congenital latent energy isconsidered as one major reason by some, postnatal surroundings,especially family background, appear to be more important.Among all the significant factors of family background, two factorsare closely related to children's learning ability. One is family economicbackground and the other is family cultural background.Li Peiling has divided family cultural backgrounds into two parts:family social environment and family cultural background. The latter oneincludes cultural activities, parents' attention to their children's learning,and parents' language background.It is true that family economic background influences children'slearning at certain degree. However, family cultural background is moreinfluential. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the influence of familycultural background on student's learning ability.Through analyzing the English level of 177 non-English majors,Grade 2, the Public Management Department, Hunan First NormalCollege, and especially after doing some survey researches about familybackground information of them, the author of this thesis finds that the relationship between learning ability and family background is quite close.Personal achievements do depend not on family financial background buton family cultural background. She also finds that among all thesignificant factors of family background, family cultural backgroundappears to be quite influential to the non-English majors' learning.However, the influence of family cultural background is not sounique and essential. Family social environment does not influencechildren's English learning at all.Moreover, the influence of family inside cultural environment is alsonot so absolute. Only these points are very essential to English learning ofnon-English majors at junior colleges: family cultural activities, familycultural atmosphere, parents' English level, whether parents' offernon-English majors with both material and spiritual support or not, andwhether they guide or help non-English majors with their Englishlearning or not.Therefore, the idea of family cultural background has absoluteessential influence to non-English majors with their English learning isneither so perfect nor so reliable.By writing this thesis, the author has conducted an initialexploration to test her hypothesis, and she strongly believes that thefindings from this initial evaluation will significantly improve theunderstanding of the influence of family cultural background andpromote further researches in this important area.