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An Interference Study Of Attributional Training To The Attributional Styles And The Choice Of Language Learning Strategy Of 5-year English Majors

Posted on:2011-11-23Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q P XiaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360332955718Subject:English Curriculum and Pedagogy
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The use of Language Learning Strategy by L2 and FL learners has aroused more and more attentions from language education researchers and linguists ever since the 1970s. Many researchers have found that individual learner differences together with various situational and social factors determine the choice of learning strategies. Ellis (1994) points out that the learning experience of the learners is one of the important factors affecting the choice of learning strategies. Attribution is the process of making causal explanations and ascriptions about individuals'previous outcome of their performance in order to predict, evaluate their actions for the future (Kong, 1987). Attribution Theory has been becoming a popular topic in the field of Educational Psychology and Learning Psychology. According to Weiner (1972), ability, effort, task difficulty and luck are postulated as the four basic causes of achievements. The attribution of success and failure will result in the change of learners'expectations and affections which can influence their next behavior. Therefore, the attribution of learners to success and failure will affect the choice of language learning strategy. Unluckily, the study on the relationship between attribution and the choice of language learning strategy has not been emphasized, and there exists a shortage of practical studies on how to improve the learners'choice of learning strategy by changing their attributional styles.5-year English majors, as a special students group, are different from either undergraduates or the senior middle school students. They graduated from the junior middle schools and will be involved in the English major study directly. The different learning environment, learning requirements and learning purposes result in their being much lower in cognitive level and their knowledge about other subjects, but having a slightly higher English level than the age-group senior middle school students. Therefore, their ideas about learning strategy and psychological elements should be further studied.For the reasons above, the current study has interfered the influence of AT on the learners'attributional styles and their choice of language learning strategies. In a survey of students of two grade-4 classes in English Department of Jincheng Vocational Institute, the researcher concludes that the 5-year English majors use language learning strategies moderately. The statistical figures of pretest reveal that there is positive and significant correlation between the choice of language learning strategies, attributional styles and academic achievements. Under such circumstances, it is practical to make an attempt to conduct attributional training to ensure it is effective to promote the choice of language learning strategies by changing the learners'negative attributions. The researcher selected Class B as the interference class to make attributional training based on the analysis from the pretest, while Class A as the control class. The purpose of this research is to exploit the following questions:1. What is the tendency of using language learning strategies by the 5-year English majors under investigation? How do they tend to attribute their past learning experiences? Is there any significant correlation between their attributional styles and choice of language learning strategy?2. Whether can attributional training help learners develop positive attributional styles?3. Whether can learners'choice of language learning strategy be affected by interfering their attributional styles by means of AT?4. Whether can AT improve the learner's academic achievement ultimately?Four months later, another questionnaire and test are carried out. The results are analyzed, which shows the findings as follows:1. The situation of students'choice of language learning strategy is not satisfying. In terms of the frequency of the use of the six categories of strategies, direct strategies are reported being used more frequently than indirect strategies by the 5-year English majors. They use cognitive strategies most frequently, while metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies are relatively less used; As for the students'attribution, they tend to attribute their success and failure to internal and controllable causes, attitude and learning strategy being considered very key to their success. However, a great many of the students prefer to attribute their failure to the inefficiency of ability, which can lead to the feeling of shame, low expectancy to success, and lack of persistency to finish tasks later. It is not favorable and needs improvement; Furthermore, there is significant and positive correlation between attributional styles, the choice of language learning strategy and academic achievements.2. AT is effective to alter students'attributional styles. After the 4-month AT, students attribute their success to some inner causes more frequently, such as, learning strategy, and attribute their failure to inner factors, such as, effort, attitude and learning strategy; while they attribute their failure to the lack of ability less frequently. It indicates that AT is helpful to make positive attribution.3. AT can influence students'choice of language learning strategy. Students prefer to use language learning strategies more frequently except metacognitive strategies.4. AT is helpful in improving students'academic achievements.In brief, AT can alter learners'negative attribution into the positive, influence their choice of LLS and improve their academic achievements.
Keywords/Search Tags:attributional training, attributional style, language learning strategy, academic achievements
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