Correlation Between Personality And Learning Strategies By Good Language Learners In Senior High School

The research of SLL (Second Language Learning) strategies has received extensive attention from 1960s. To improve the efficiency of learning, the "teacher-centered" way has been shifted to the "student-centered" way and the necessity of research and application has been deepened with the further development of autonomous-learning theory. Recent decades have been devoted to extensive studies on learning strategies at a wide range from English and non-English majors, female and male learners, to successful and unsuccessful learners etc. and their choice of learning strategies. From the year 1990s, researches cover wider and larger field.However, as an important factor for learning, no final conclusion has been reached as far as the personality is concerned. Seeing that the students in college are more mature and have developed stronger autonomy, the studies concerning personality and learning strategies are carried out more extensively and at a wider range. For senior high school students, these studies cover rather limited fields as anxiety analyses, creative exploration, classroom silence and the poor students' psychological barriers. While when kicking out the factors of risk-taking, tolerance of ambiguity, empathy, self-esteem and inhibition, the only two variables—extrovert-introvert are taken to consideration and analyses. Ellis(1994) brought to light two hypotheses concerning the foreign learning and the extrovert-introvert personality—The extrovert learners have obvious advantages in Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills; The introvert learners in Cognitive Academic Language Ability. While the research results vary home and abroad(Naiman&al.,1978; Busch,1982; Strong,1983; Robson,1992), Wang Xuemei(2000) thought that the personality factor do have impacts on English learning while Liang Xiaobo, Tan Juling(1999) did not think the two are closely related.Large quantities of researches have been devoted to correlation between personality and learning strategies different learners choose, while the study was seldom carried out in senior high school, esp. among the Good Language Learners (GLLs) in senior high school whose study results may shed lights on the foreign language learning for all the English learners. Previous studies show that personality factors do have some impact on the choice of learning which were shown in the review of Ehrman&Oxford(1990), Wu Liling(2005). Based on extensive reading, thinking and analyses of the previous studies, this thesis aims to solve problems as:Is there any correlation exists between personality type and learning strategies use, if so, weak or strong, and in which way? At the same time, the subjects are only limited to GLLs, the results of which may provide lights on the further teaching and the students'senior high school learning in an all around way and at a higher comprehensive level.In this research,100 students in senior high school affiliated to Xi'an JiaoTong University were picked out as the subjects. First, they were picked out from the Experimental Class and best English learners from average-level class according to the weekly, monthly and final exams results. Then the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R) was handed out to them and their personality type were then clearly defined. Later, their strategy uses were tested out by Oxford's (1990) standard classification. And the last step is the analysis using Excel and SPSS13.0 the Spearman relevance and T-test.At last, based on all the results of the studies, several suggestions are raised for present language teaching and limitations are also pointed out for further improvement.