Senior High School Students' Use Of Learning Strategies In English Autonomous Learning: A Survey-Based Study

Learning strategy plays an important role in English autonomous learning. It not only provides techniques but it also influences the rate and efficiency of autonomous learning. The new reform of basic education course also emphasizes the importance of one's life-long study, so it is important for teachers to teach students how to learn. During the period of work as a practice teacher in No.1 Middle School of Longkou, Shandong Province, the author of the thesis finds that quite a few students are not able to use learning strategies well. In order to improve the students'use of learning strategies, the author has made some investigation into the students'use of learning strategies. Based on the study, the author summarizes some effective ways for enhancing the use of learning strategies.The study examined the use of learning strategies by investigating 276 students from No.1 Middle School of Longkou, Shandong Province through a questionnaire and having an interview with 10 boys and 10 girls of each grade. The results of the study indicate that:1) Among the different strategies, memory strategies have the highest mean, followed by affective strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies and social strategies. In other words, memory strategies are in the highest use while social strategies are in the lowest use. As far as compensation strategies are concerned, the strategies of "looking for similar words or phrases" (mean 3.5480) and those of "making guesses through context" (mean 3.6280) are used most frequently while the five least frequently used strategies include "using flashcard" (mean 1.9280), "writing the feelings in a diary" (mean 2.2440), and "acting out the words" (mean 2.3400), "practicing English with other students" (mean 2.4040) and "talking about the feelings with classmates" (mean 2.4360).2) Through a gender-related comparison of the use of learning strategies, girls are better at using strategies than boys in the five groups of strategies. And the T-test shows that there is a significant correlation between the use of learning strategies and gender in the senior high school. There is a significant difference between boys and girls in metacognitive strategies [Sig. (2-tailed) <0.01] and social strategies [Sig. (2-tailed)<0.05].3) A grade-related comparison of the use of learning strategies shows that students in Grade Two get the highest mean score among the five kinds of strategy. It indicates that students in Grade Two use learning strategies most frequently. Besides, there is a significant difference in the use of affective strategies among different grades of students. And multiple comparisons show that there is a significant difference between Grade One and Grade Two in affective strategies. There is no significant difference among different grades of students in other strategies.Based on the results of the above investigation and relevant analysis, the author of the thesis attempts to provide some suggestions on how to improve English teaching and promote the use of learning strategies. The suggestions are as follows:1) changing traditional teaching methods; 2) keeping the optimal level of anxiety; 3) enhancing strategy training; 4) taking gender difference into account; 5) encouraging cooperative learning; 6) strengthening students' self-confidence...