An Investigation And Study On English Learning Strategies Used By College Students

Since the 1970s, Western applied linguists and psychologists have conducted increasing popularity of research on language learning strategies. Some Chinese researchers began to study language learning strategies in a foreign language context under the Chinese culture and language background in the 1980s. In previous researches, most of the subjects are English majors or non-English majors in universities, while few are non-English majors at vocational colleges. In addition the previous studies mostly have made comparison and analysis on the overall strategy and the category strategies. On this basis, the present study tries to further analyze and compare with the specific strategies as well as the overall and category strategies.In this study, a group of non-English majors in Yantai Vocational College are chosen as subjects to be investigated, aiming to reveal how English proficiency and gender affect the use of language learning strategy and the characteristics of the language learning strategy use. The quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in this present study. The research instruments are used for this study as following: Practical English Test for Colleges Level B (PRETCO-B), Rebecca L. Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (50-item Version 7.0 for ESL/EFL) and a semi-structured interview.178 non-English major sophomores who have taken part in the PRETCO-B from Yantai Vocational College participate in this investigation. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 17.0 is employed to analyze the data as soon as they are collected. During the process of analysis, description of mean and standard deviation, the correlation analysis, and the independent samples t-tests are used. In the early stages of the investigation, the researcher uses quantitative analysis on the survey questionnaire, in order to quickly grasp the general condition of students’use of English learning strategies, and then adds the qualitative research method in the subsequent in-depth understanding and analysis parts. Through the ten regular students’ classroom observation, interviews and questionnaire analysis, the researcher summarizes their coincidence, combined with quantitative research results to jointly explore the characteristics and the existing problems of English learning strategies in vocational college.The frequency of overall strategy and six category strategies use of Yantai Vocational College non-English majors is not high, falling in the medium range. In six category strategies, compensation strategy is most frequently used, while cognitive strategy is least frequently. The students’language proficiency positively relates to learning strategies use, among which metacognitive strategy, memory strategy and social strategy are closely relevant to their language proficiency. There is no significant difference in the use of overall strategy between female and male students. Female students surpass but not significantly male students in all the strategy categories. Of the six strategy categories, female students and male students differ significantly only from the use of cognitive strategies.It is suggested that the low frequency of language learning strategies use in vocational college non-English majors should be an important concern of English teachers. In other words, how to help the students to succeed in language learning strategies and master them should be a significant task for English teachers in vocational colleges.