A Correlational Study Of Learning Styles, Learning Strategies And English Achievements Of Senior Middle School Students

In recent years, the researches of learning styles and learning strategies have been attracted researchers. Nowadays, with the widespread of quality education, it is very necessary to carry out the research of learning styles and learning strategies. In China, there have been a lot of findings about learning styles and strategies, but most of the researches are aimed at English majors or non-English majors of universities, few about senior middle students. But senior middle is a crucial period of the learning process, so in the present research, learning styles and strategies of senior middle school students are the theme.The primary objective of this study was to examine the relationships between learning styles and second language achievement, and the relationships between learning strategies and second language achievement. It also investigated the general distribution of learning styles and learning strategies of senior middle students, and the relationships between learning styles and learning strategies.Questionnaires were employed to obtain quantitative data. 160 students of Grade Three from senior middle school participated in answering the questionnaires. The data were coded into computer, SPSS11.0 (the Statistical Package for Social Science) was employed to analyze the data. The questionnaire results indicated that:(1) The distribution of learning styles in terms of senior middle school students is: most students are tactile, and then visual, individual, auditory and kinesthetic, the least is the group styles.(2) In terms of learning strategies, most students adopt metacognitive strategies, then comes compensation, memory, affective and cognitive strategies, students employed social strategies least.(3) Visual learning styles have relationships with affective strategy; auditory styles have relationships with cognitive, compensation, affective and social strategy; kinesthetic styles related to memory, affective and social strategies; tactile styles more prone to compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategy; group styles have relationships with memory, cognitive and social strategies; and individual styles have no relationships with any learning strategies.(4) There are relationships between individual learning styles and grammar and vocabulary achievement. But there is no relationship between individual learning style and reading, writing achievement, so we can conclude that learning style is a neutral concept, there is no good or bad; but there are some relationships between learning strategies and language achievements. The L2 achievement consists of three parts—grammar and vocabulary, reading, writing. The results show that in grammar and vocabulary achievement, learners who have higher achievement employed memory, metacognitive and social strategies; in testing of reading comprehension, students who gained higher achievement adopt memory and metacognitive strategies more frequently; for the writing part, learners who employ cognitive, metacognitive strategies. Based on the research findings, implications for teachers and students are given at the end the dissertation. The implications are: (1) improve the memory and cognitive learning strategies. (2) enhance the social and affective learning strategies.