The English Classroom Environment Of 4-6th Grades And Its Relationship With Students' English Academic Self-efficacy

With the development of our society and the in-depth research into education ecology, classroom environment has become an important field in terms of educational sociology, educational psychology, environmental psychology and scientific education. Classroom environment play an important role in students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes. Numerous researches demonstrated that classroom environment has close relationship with the students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the researches in this field, this dissertation explored and discussed the structure and characteristics of 4-6th graders perceived English Classroom Environment and its relationship with students'English academic self-efficacy.By in-depth interviewing 18 students and 8 teachers from Grade Four to Grade Six in two primary schools, and line-by-line coding analysis grounded on the interview materials, the framework of the English classroom environment was constructed. Based on the results, the 4-6th Grades English Classroom Environment Questionnaire was established, and the basic characteristics of the 4-6th grades English classroom environment by questionnaire survey of 347 4-6th graders was revealed. Then this study examined the relationship between English classroom environment and students'English academic self-efficacy. Through a series of interview, survey and analysis, the following major results were made:1. The 4-6th Grades English Classroom Environment Questionnaire primarily consisted of six dimensions: Classroom Order, Classroom Innovation, Classroom Involvement, Emotional Support, Academic Competitiveness and Academic Satisfaction. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested acceptable.2. The English Classroom Environment of 4-6th grades was at the medium level but a little lower. The six dimensions had significantly differences, which from the low to the high were Emotional Support, Classroom Innovation, Classroom Involvement, Academic Competitiveness, Academic Satisfaction, and Classroom Order.3. The gender, grade, school type of 4-6th graders, influenced their perception of The English Classroom Environment on the different dimensions. There was significant gender difference with regard to Classroom Innovation and Emotional Support, girl students score significantly higher than boy students; Significant difference appeared in the Classroom Involvement, Emotional Support, Academic Satisfaction and Classroom Innovation of different grades, 4th-grade and 5th-grade students score significantly higher than 6th-grade students; There was significant difference with regard to Classroom Involvement and Classroom Innovation between key primary school and general primary school, the key primary students score significantly higher than the general primary students.4. The English Classroom Environment correlated closely with English academic self-efficacy in great mass of dimensions. Students perceived Classroom Involvement, Emotional Support, Academic Competitiveness, influenced their English academic self-efficacy in different extent.