A Study On Learning Strategies In Rural Senior High School EFL Class

It is stipulated in the new National English Curriculum Criteria that one of the goals of English course is to help students form effective learning strategies.In China the research of learning strategies began in the early 1980s. However, it was mainly about college students. In recent years, more and more studies have been carried out on learning strategies employed by high school students. In China most senior high school students come from rural areas. They are lack of necessary environment and strong motivation, they begin to learn English very late, they are not aware of learning strategies during the learning.So the teacher should be aware of the importance of learning strategies and do some research on it. The teacher should also try to train the students'English learning strategies in the daily teaching activities. The study of strategies which will enhance learning efficiency of students and promote teaching activities is really significant and worthy. It will achieve the purpose of reducing the heavy burdens of teachers as well as students.The research is based on the main outline of learning strategies studied at home and abroad. One questionnaire of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) is designed according to Cheng Xiaotang and ZhenMin's questionnaire(according to Oxford ) of English learning strategies and requirements of the new National English Curriculum Criteria. In all there are 47items, of which there are 16 cognitive strategies, 11 metacognitive strategies, 9 affective strategies, 7 communication strategies and 4 resourcing strategies. The other is about learning situation designed by the author herself. It mentions the students'learning beliefs, learning motivation, learning environment, teaching method,learning styles and so on .The author made a survey in No.1 Middle School in LuQuan. All the 206 subjects (108 boys 98 girls) were from 4 classes in Grade One, including 101students from the selected classes and the other 105 students from the non-selected classes. At last 200 questionnaires are effective. It is aimed at discovering how the students use English learning strategies and what the existing problems are, and how to improve the future teaching and the students'autonomous learning ability.Software Microsoft Excels was used to collect and analyze the data. The result shows that:1.Affective strategies are employed more frequently and communication strategies are the least used, and the other strategies are sometimes used but not very often.2.There are obviously difference between the students from the selected classes and the students from the non-selected classes in language learning strategies.3. Different genders show quite difference in use of learning strategies, the girl students used strategy categories significantly more better than the boy students.4. According to the pre-test and post-test about the control class and the experimental class, the students who have been trained by learning strategies obviously can get a better result in the final examination. There are many factors which influence the students'learning strategies, such as: learning beliefs, learning motivation, learning environment, teaching method, learning styles and so on.In order to solve the problems, it's necessary for teachers know about such factors, and come to grip with the nature of individual differences in the classroom. The teacher can help them to incorporate effective strategy training into classroom practice for more autonomous and effective learning.From the collected data and discussions the author drew some conclusions and suggestions:1.The English teachers in rural senior high schools should learn about language learning strategies by reading books, learning from experts and in a variety of others ways. They should improve their theoretical level so that they can be more helpful in training the students integrating skills.2.The cultivation of the motivation can improve the students'learning motivation.3.The students'strategies should be trained in classroom through listening, speaking, reading and writing.4.Teaching styles should match with learning styles. 5.The students'communication strategy training should be emphasized.The research also provides some simple description on application of strategy training in English language teaching and constructive advice for the future research in this field.