A Correlational Study Of Learning Styles And English Learning Strategy Of Senior Middle School Students

Since the 1970s, researches on the language teaching have shifted their attention from teachers to students. At the same time, researches on the foreign language teaching have changed their attention from language corpus, teaching material, and teaching methods to foreign language learners. Therefore, researchers on the individual differences of the learners have gradually become one of the main research perspectives in the second language teaching and acquisition. As one of the important factors in ID (individual differences), learning styles has attracted more and more researchers'attention. In recent years, the researches of learning styles and learning strategies have attracted researchers. Nowadays, with the widespread of quality education, it is very necessary to carry out the research of learning styles and learning strategies. In China, there have been a lot of findings about learning styles and strategies, but most of the researches are aimed at English majors or non-English majors of universities, few about senior middle students. But senior middle is a crucial period of the learning process, so in the present research, learning styles and strategies of senior middle school students are the theme.The primary objective of this study was to examine the relationships between learning styles and language learning strategies. The author of this thesis investigated the general distribution of learning styles and learning strategies of senior middle students. Then the author analyzed the correlation or relationship between the learning styles and language learning strategies they prefer to choose in their second language learning process.This study is mainly quantitative. Firstly the author introduced the basic definitions and classifications of learning styles and language learning strategies as well as some important theories about them. Then based on the theory, Reid's Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire (PLSPQ) and Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) were used as instruments to collect quantitative data. 120 students of Grade Three from No. 1 senior middle school in Xingtai, Hebei province, participated in answering the questionnaires. The data were coded into computer, SPSS17.0 (the Statistical Package for Social Science) was employed to analyze the data, using descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation analysis. The questionnaire results indicated that:(1)The distribution of learning styles in terms of senior middle school students is: the distribution is various in overall. Most students are individual, and then tactile, auditory, kinesthetic and group styles, and the least is the visual styles.(2)In terms of learning strategies, most students adopt compensation strategies, then comes metacognitive, memory, cognitive and affective strategies, and students employed social strategies least.(3)There is relationship between students'learning styles and learning strategies:Visual, auditory, kinesthetic and group learning styles students prefer to use affective strategy; tactile styles students are more prone to social strategy; and individual styles students prefer to memory and metacognitive learning strategies.In conclusion, the results from this study provide insightful implications for English teachers from senior high school. Teachers should identify and meet students'learning style preferences, and be aware of their own teaching styles and try their best to create teacher-student style matching. And students should learn to use the styles that may facilitate and promote successful learning, and avoid using of the styles that have negative influences on particular learning task. Moreover, teachers should help students learn about foreign language learning strategies and encourage them to employ more proper learning strategies in their language learning process, to obtain better learning results.