A Study Of English Learning Strategies Adopted By Senior Middle School Students

In the traditional English class of senior middle schools, teachers pay more attention to the input of information than the cultivation of students'comprehensive abilities. This teaching method makes it impossible to develop learner autonomy.It is stated in the English Curriculum Standard for Senior Middle Schools (Ministry of Education of P. R. China, 2003) that learning strategy is the precondition of improving learning efficiency and learner autonomy. Students are required to develop their abilities in employing and adjusting language learning strategies in accordance with different learning tasks. Therefore it is significant to emphasize investigations into students'strategy use in order to make marked advances in quality education.The study of language learning strategies has had a history of more than three decades. Substantial scholars both at home and abroad (e.g. Rubin, 1975; Green & Oxford, 1995; Wen Qiufang, 1996; Zhang Wenpeng, 1999) have carried out considerable research on language learning strategies. A great amount of research has identified that appropriate strategies could ensure effective learning. However, a large percentage of investigations were conducted among university students. The studies aimed at middle school students, especially those based on the English Curriculum Standard for Senior Middle Schools, are far from enough.The present research aims to explore English learning strategies adopted by senior middle school students. An empirical study is adopted to probe the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics of learning strategies adopted by senior middle school students under investigation? (2) What are the differences in strategy use among different grades? (3) What are the differences in strategy use between male and female students? (4) What is the correlation between learning strategy use and language achievement?Based on the classification of learning strategies in the English Curriculum Standard for Senior Middle Schools and Oxford's (1990) SILL (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning), a questionnaire was designed by the researcher. A total of 274 students from Shandong Experimental Middle School were investigated. SPSS 10.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was used in data analysis and statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, independent samples T-test and correlation analysis were adopted.Results from the present study show that: (1) Senior middle school students are at medium level in adopting English learning strategies. Regulation and cognitive strategies are the most frequently used while resources and communication strategies remain less frequently used. (2) Grade one students show statistically significant differences from those in grade two and grade three. They employ more learning strategies than the students in the two grades. Grade two and grade three students do not have statistically significant differences in adopting learning strategies. (3) Male students show statistical differences from female students in using cognitive strategies, regulations strategies and resources strategies, with communication strategies as an exception. Male students display a lower frequency of using English learning strategies than female students. (4) There exists a positive correlation between overall learning strategies and language achievement of the three grades as a whole and respectively. Grade one and grade three students'use of communication and resources strategies is not correlated with language achievement. Grade two students'use of the four strategies is positively correlated with language achievement.In light of the research, the paper conducts further discussion endeavoring to give explanations to the findings and also provides concrete implications and suggestions for senior middle school teachers, learners and education departments. The researcher hopes that the present study can be of some help to the English teaching and learning in accordance with the English Curriculum Standard for Senior Middle Schools. Owing to the limited time, there must be some unavoidable limitations in the present study, which needs to be discussed and improved further.