A Study Of Senior High School Students' Use Of English Learning Strategies

English learning strategies are put forward for the first time in the new English Curriculum Standard of Senior High School as one of the qualities of developing comprehensive language proficiency.A further study of learning strategies not only helps to enhance the students' awareness and establish their autonomous learning ability,but also helps teachers to know more about their students' learning concepts and actions,so that they can accordingly adjust their teaching strategies and methods.The study of learning strategies in our country has gone through twenty years or so. Some of the achievements have already made a great difference in English teaching. However,a large percentage of those researches deal with only college students,while the study of high school students' learning strategies is far from enough.A questionnaire survey was conducted among 365 students in a certain Suzhou four-star senior high school and analyzed the data with Software SPSS 13.0.The results are as follows:1.The general level of the students' application of English learning strategies is obviously on the low side.The use of cognitive strategies,which is easily influenced by teachers' guidance,is sometimes prone to serve short-term goals.2.There exist gender differences in the use of English learning strategies,especially in regulating strategies,cognitive strategies and resources strategies.Girl students use more strategies than boy students.3.There are also differences between science students and arts students,resulting from the fact that more girls choose arts and more boys choose science.4.Significant differences exist between the high-score group and the low-score group in regulating strategies,affective strategies,cognitive strategies as well as resources strategies.5.Learning achievements are closely related to learning strategies,among which regulating strategies play the most important role and are of predictive validity. According to the findings above,the following suggestions are made on senior high school students' English learning strategies.1.Enhance the teachers' awareness of learning strategies,and integrate the training of learning strategies into everyday teaching.2.Re-stimulate the students' interest in English learning,and improve their ability of applying learning strategies.3.Strengthen the training of learning strategies,especially regulating strategies and cognitive strategies,for the purpose of lifelong learning.4.Pay attention to the individual differences in the use of learning strategies.