A Study On The Relationship Between Extroversion/Introversion Of Language Learners And Their Use Of EFL Learning Strategies

"If you give a man a fish,you feed him for a day.If you teach a man how to fish,you feed him for a lifetime." Since the 1970s,researchers have gradually changed their focus from "how to teach" to "how to learn",and researches related to learning strategies have attracted great attention.Among the researches in this field,there are numerous studies on the factors which affect the use of learning strategies,such as learning styles,motivation and age.However,personality,one of the important individual factors affecting the strategy use,has not yet been paid much attention to.Some foreign scholars have attempted to study on the relationship between personality and the use of learning strategies,such as Oxford(1990) and Ehrman(1990). But in China,most of the relevant researches are at the beginning stage and they have not got conclusive results yet.Therefore,it is really necessary to make an exhaustive study on the relationship between Chinese students' personality traits and their strategy use against the Chinese cultural background.Studying on extroversion/introversion,one aspect of personalities,and learning strategies,this research aims to explore firstly the relationship between the extroversion/introversion of the Chinese freshmen and their strategy use,then examine their general pattern of strategy use,and finally compare their differences in using learning strategies.Eysenk's EPQ-RSC questionnaire and Oxford's SILL questionnaire were respectively adopted to examine the extroversion/introversion of 206 freshmen from four colleges in Guizhou University as well as their circumstances of using learning strategies.With the help of three methods(i.e.,correlation analysis,descriptive analysis and an independent sample t-test) in SPSS12.0 statistical analysis software,three statistic results were obtained.Besides,ten interviews were carried out among five extroverts and five introverts for the purpose of getting more information for the explanation of the results.The present study indicates that(1) There exists a positive correlation between the extroversion/introversion and the use of learning strategies;(2) The extroverts and the introverts sometimes use learning strategies and their general pattern of strategies use is at the level of medium;and(3) The extroverts use both total strategies and each category of strategies more frequently than the introverts.The extroverts' use of compensation strategies is at the uniquely high level.Following the three results,discussion was made in detail.What's more,some pedagogical implications about this study and several suggestions on teaching and learning were given in the last chapter.On one hand,teachers should not only be quite aware of students' different personality traits but also need to adopt various teaching methods and implement corresponding strategy training plans.On the other hand,students should not only know their own characteristics well but also try to bring.their potential into full play and make up for their disadvantages in the second language learning. Besides,it is very important for them to choose appropriate learning strategies autonomously and perform the strategy straining with their teachers cooperatively.