A Study On English Learning Strategies Of Students With Learning Difficulties In Senior High School

Under the present circumstance of focusing on quality education, school education should serve for all the students, however, it can not be denied that there exits the students with learning difficulties,including those with English learning difficulties, and they should not be neglected. In recent years, research on learning strategies has gradually drawn the attention of more and more domestic and international scholars in order to help the learners to overcome English learning difficulties. So far, much research on learning strategies has been carried out by scholars from various angles and aiming at different research subjects. But fewer have done research on learning strategies from the perspective of high school students with English learning difficulties. In the thesis the author finds out how well learning strategies are used by the high school students with English learning difficulties through the questionnaire survey of Senior II students of Jilin No.1 High School and analyzes the phenomenon. The thesis aims to explore the following problems: 1. At what frequency the students with English learning difficulties use learning strategies? 2. What impacts does the adoption of specific learning strategies have on the struggling students?The learning strategies questionnaire adopted in this thesis is made by Cheng Xiaotang and Zheng Min. The 85 students surveyed are randomly chosen among Senior II students from Jilin No.1 High School. The data from the research is analyzed statistically via Microsoft Excel. The results of the survey indicate that on the whole, the main difficulty that the students with English learning difficulties have is that their overall strategy level is not high and the average score of the use of learning strategies is only 1.77, which belongs to the category of"seldom use". However, the average score of the use of learning strategies for the team with high scores is 3.58, which falls into the category of"usually use"and the average score of the use of learning strategies for the team with medium score is 2.73, which fits the category of"occasionally use". Thus we can arrive at the conclusion that students with English learning difficulties are hardly capable of using right strategies in learning by analyzing the data. Moreover, for the students with English learning difficulties, the frequency in using learning strategies is rather low and their average scores for metacognitive strategies, emotion strategies and communication strategies are 1.65, 1.8 and 1 respectively, which is totally included into the category of"seldom use"with an exception of cognitive strategies whose score is 2.64 belonging to the category of"generally use". The specific learning strategies used by the students have significant impacts on the students'academic achievements. Let's take the use of cognitive strategies as an example: due to the insufficiency of knowledge, the students with learning difficulties in English cannot diagnose learning problems by themselves, or fail to be aware of their learning problems. That accounts for the fact that they tend to study English with the aid of their mother tongue due to the low English language proficiency. Students with English learning difficulties cannot fulfill the study plan made by themselves or to monitor or reflect their learning process in time. The consequence is that the students with English learning difficulties are unaware of their strengths and weaknesses in study. As for the use of emotional strategies, students with learning difficulties tend to be shy in learning with high level of learning anxiety and they often lack interest in learning English as well as positive attitude towards learning. Neither do they have confidence in learning. As to the aspect of communication strategies, students with learning difficulties barely use any of these strategies and they have never communicated in English with anyone else in or outside the classroom.In short, the inappropriate use of learning strategies has become one of the major difficulties for the students in learning English. If the students with English learning difficulties can grasp or learn to use some of the learning strategies and put the learning strategies into conscious use in their learning process, it will be of great help for the students to get rid of their"learning difficulties"and improve their learning achievements.