A Study On The Relationship Between Examination-oriented Education And The Employment Of Language Learning Strategies

"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Since the 1970s, researchers have gradually changed their focus from "how to teach" to "how to learn", and studies related to language learning strategies have attracted great attention. Among the studies in this field, a number of them are about the factors which affect the employment of learning strategies, such as motivation, gender and language proficiency of language learners. However, education system (such as examination-oriented education), one of the important individual factors affecting the employment of strategies, has not yet been paid much attention to. This study aims to make an exclusive study on the relationship between Chinese examination-oriented education and learners’learning strategy employment, while examining their general behavior pattern of strategy use. Two research questions have been proposed based on the research aim:Is there a significant relationship between examination-oriented education and the students’employment of language learning strategies? If there is, how does the examination-oriented education affect the students’employment of learning strategies?The data on self-reported learning strategy use are gathered from 80 sophomores at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Chengdu University of TCM) in 16th Dec.2010, using Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL, adapted by the author). Another two questionnaires, Subjects’Understanding of Examination-oriented Education and the Individual Background Information Questionnaire are used to find out the subjects’attitude toward examination-oriented education as well as their background information.The research results show that examination-oriented education and the’ employment of language learning strategies are positively related. Under the condition of examination-oriented education, language learners tend to use more language learning strategies. Specifically, the participants reported using metacognitive strategies more frequently than any other types of strategies. Compensation strategies are the next most frequently used, followed by affective strategies, cognitive strategies. Finally, memory strategies and then social strategies are reported as the least frequently used strategies.Based on the existing research findings, discussions were made and some pedagogical implications for language teaching and learning are given in the last chapter. On the one hand, language educators should pay more attention to the cultivation of the language learners’practical language skills. On the other hand, it is very important for language learners to choose appropriate learning strategies autonomously and learn how to use them more efficiently.