The Study Of Related Factors In English Learning Of Yi Nationality Middle School Students In Sichuan Province

Since 1980s, a large number of researches on the second language or foreign language teaching and learning have been carried out on a large scale in the English educational world of China. Such researches have all achieved plenty of fruits, however, the researches concerning the English language learning of minority students are seldom touched; besides, most of the researches are of poor quality, either short of convincing theoretical basis or lack of empirical study. The author decided to carry out the study because the author, up to now, has found few systematical and complete researches on the related factors influencing the Yi middle school students in learning the English language. It is obvious that Yi people have their own mother tongue, the official language Chinese is their second language, and English becomes their third language. The difficulties in learning a third language are self-evident to everyone. So it is of great practical and far-reaching significance to conduct a research on the learning strategies and learning styles, to analyze all kinds of advantages and disadvantages of the Yi middle school students in English language learning, and to find out effective teaching and learning strategies.The research mainly focuses on the following questions:1) What are the intrinsic factors that have influences on the Yi middle school students in English language learning: learning styles, learning strategies, and psychological factors? And what kind of difference they can make?2) What are the extrinsic factors that have influences on the Yi middle school students in English language learning: teachers, families, society? And how do they affect the students?3) Which factors are the most influential to the Yi middle school students in English language learning and are there any differences among each other?4) What are the most effective strategies and learning methods that the Yi middle school students can take in English language learning?This thesis, based on the theoretical structure of learning strategies and learning styles, adopts the questionnaire investigation, interviews and others meaning to get the first-hand empirical materials in Yi areas of Liangshan Prefecture, learns about and explores the conditions of English language learning and teaching of Yi middle school students. The author takes a comprehensive analysis on the collected materials together with her own teaching experiences. Consequently, the study findings display that both the intrinsic factors and extrinsic factor are the main factors having influence on the Yi middle school students in English language learning. And the intrinsic factors consist of learning styles, learning strategies and psychological factors while extrinsic factors include families, teachers, society and culture. However, integrating the teaching and learning theories as well as SPSS analysis, the author finds that the extrinsic factors are the more influential factors of Yi middle school students in English language learning. Moreover, some effective improvement can be achieved if the Yi students take advantages of the extrinsic factors in English language learning. Finally, the thesis points out that the significance of the research on the Yi middle school students in English learning is to satisfy the requirements of the new century and to help improving the quality of foreign language teaching and the students' foreign language competence in minority areas.