On The Effect Of Gender Difference On Middle School Students' English Learning And Some Helpful Strategies

This thesis discusses the effect of gender difference on middle school students' English learning and some helpful strategies in light of some sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and cognitive linguistic theories. Certain investigations have been made on the state of English learning and learning style of the two classes I have taught through questionnaires, analyses of the result of boys' and girls' English learning and some interviews with different students. Among them, an investigation of a random sample of senior students in 6 rural key middle schools of the city of Changshu shows that there is difference in learning strategy between boys and girls who are studying in senior middle school nowadays. The result of the investigation tells that girls do better than boys in almost all items such as grammar, reading and writing, and that only in listening the distance is slightly smaller. In terms of motivation for study, both girls and boys have the same aim at getting a high score, being admitted to a good university and therefore being able to find a well-paid job after university study. Both of them are very rational in that sense. When it comes to the reading strategy, the result tells us that girls are superior to boys in the application of cognitive strategy, adjustment strategy, communicative strategy and resource strategy while boys are slightly better than girls in the application of emotional strategy. Unfortunately, another result shows that neither girls nor boys apply many strategies to their English study. According to these investigations, different factors that affect language learning involve social affection, language learning style, physiological factors, motivation for study, concept on study, and learning strategy, which are discussed in detail in the thesis. On the basis of research on the gender differences in these factors, the educational concept of "teaching by gender" has been raised and some relative strategies are raised on how to teach students to give full play to their strong points and avoid their weak points and how to overcome their short comings in order that students can improve their English efficiently. This research has a general significance for current basic senior English teaching. And it will play an important part in promoting the reform of new curriculum.