Survey Of English Learning Strategies Of Junior Middle School Students

At present, the junior middle-school English instruction in China is guided by the Syllabus of Junior Middle-school English of Compulsory Education (SJMECE) issued in 1992 by the Ministry of Education. Although the syllabus requires that teachers should help students acquire good study habits and methods, cultivate their ability to study independently; it fails to include requirements on English learning strategies particular to junior middle-school students. On the whole, language learning strategies have not been paid much attention to. The Curriculum Standards of English Instruction for Compulsory Education and General Senior Middle Schools (CSEICEGSMS) (experimenting version) issued in 2001 by the Ministry of Education holds that the integrative competence of language use is based on the student's language skills and abilities, knowledge of the language, affection and attitude, learning strategies and background knowledge of the people's culture of the language. Therefore, it prescribes the goals that should be achieved by students on the four categories of learning strategies: cognitive strategies, management strategies, communicative strategies and resource strategies.In order to find out whether the English learning strategies described in the CSEICEGSMS have been used by the junior middle school students whose English studies are guided by the current syllabus, how often they make use of them and whether there is any disparities between the requirements of the CSEICEGSMS and the current conditions of the students using English learning strategies; the author of this thesis surveyed the current conditions of the junior middle school students using language learning strategies in their English studies. The survey involved the students in three different junior middle schools (a provincial selective one, a municipal selective one and an ordinary one). It tries to find out the answers of three questions: 1. What is the general condition of the students using the learningstrategies and what problems exist? 2. Are there any differences with statistical significance in using English learning strategies between male and female students? 3. Are there any differences with statistical significance in using English learning strategies among the students of three different schools?The investigation takes the form of questionnaire. After the questionnaires were finished by the respondents, they were collected and the qualitative data were transformed into quantitative ones that were then handled with SPSS.Generally speaking, the outcomes of the investigation shows that the subjects use every strategy mentioned in the questionnaire; but the frequency at which they use these strategies are low, which indicates that the current junior middle school students do not make use of the English learning strategies much and they do not possess the ability to apply various strategies flexibly to their English studies. Among the four kinds of strategies, the frequency of management strategies is the highest while that of communicative ones is the lowest. It shows that in our country the English learners are short of real communicative needs and desires whether in. class or out of class. Their communicative activities in class are no more than simulative ones whose main purpose is to consolidate the patterns, structures and communicative expressions. There are three reasons for this: 1. The teacher fails to be able to create a real communicative situation for the student because of his/her beliefs in language instruction, English level and teaching methods. 2. The examination-centered education leads to the result of ignoring the training of the student's communicative competence because the Senior Middle School Matriculation (SMSM) does not include items of oral communication. 3. There are no adequate surroundings suitable for communication in English in our country.In the aspect of the difference between male and female students using strategies, the result of ANOVA indicates that there are no significant dif...