An Investigation Into Correlation Between Subjective Factors And Non-English Majors' Oral English Achievements

From the 1990s' the College English teaching in our country has made great progress. However, the students' speaking ability has not developed simultaneously. Most of the graduates have weak oral English and can not speak English freely and fluently. Why their oral English is still weak after ten more years study? This has been the focus of English Foreign Language researchers, as the focus of English teaching transforming from "teacher-centered" to "students-centered", researchers pay more attention to learning strategies, individual differences, especially affective factors. The large amount of researches suggest that these subjective factors have great influence on the language learning, and sometimes play a determinant role.The research takes non-English majors as the subjects, and the purpose is to investigate the correlation between oral English achievement and oral English learning strategies as well as affective factors.The following findings are yielded: Firstly, among the five strategy categories which are studied in this project, social strategies are the most frequently used, and cognitive strategies are the least frequently used. The overall five learning strategies have a moderate predictive power on oral English achievement. While concerning each strategy category, social strategies are the most powerful predicators of oral English achievements. Secondly, learners with greater interest in English and stronger motivation towards English score higher; moderate anxiety can be beneficial to language learning, students who are excessively anxious or not at all anxious in English learning are less likely to succeed; the better self-esteem a student has, the higher he scores; extrovert students generally do better than the introvert in oral English learning.Finally, the thesis gives implications for oral English teaching and learning according to the findings, points out the limitations of the research, and gives suggestions for further study.