A Comparative Autobiographical Research Of Learning Strategies Between Good And Poor English Leaners

Since1984, language learning strategies have been the main concern in the researchfields of psychology, education and foreign language learning and teaching, withinvestigation and quantitative research as commonly used research approaches but rarelywith qualitative research approach. This research made a comparison between goodEnglish learners and poor English learners, based on the qualitative research approach byanalyzing their autobiographies, and aimed to find out the differences between them in thesources and generation of their language learning strategies respectively as well as thetypes of their differences in English grammar learning strategies.Following the guidelines and outline for their autobiography entitled “My LearningStrategies in Learning English” which were modified in the pre-research work, thisresearch collected172effective works, from26English professors,81non-English-majorsophomores whose scores in CET Band6were over550and also ranked top27%in thegrammar judgment test, with the former two grouped in the good language learners, and81non-English-major sophomores whose scores in CET Band were below425and rankedlow27%in the grammar judgment test, grouped in the poor language learners. With theanalysis conducted on grounded theory and the coding technique as well as QSR theNvivo7.0analysis software, this research arrived at the following conclusions:1) Poorlanguage learners failed to generate their own strategies, but more dependent on directlearning or borrowing language learning strategies from outside sources, such as teachers’instruction or tutors’ explanation, while Good language learners’ strategies come from bothoutside and inside sources.2) Poor language learners expected to generate strategies bysudden realization but with less strategy-consciousness and with less attempt to reflect oreven to make a try, and thus failed to generate strategies within themselves due to thenegative influence caused by the duplicate effect from the outside and inside sources;however, good language learners, with stronger strategy consciousness, could generatestrategies within themselves either by sudden realization or gradual realization due to the positive influence caused by the outside and inside sources, facilitated by the followingmethods of error trying and analyzing，seeking and adjusting，reflecting and summarizing.3) As far as the types of English grammar learning strategies were concerned, poorlanguage learners could only use simple repetition strategy with fewer fine processingstrategies and organizational strategies, while good language learners had various strategiesin learning, memorizing and note-taking; poor language learners used less meta-cognitionstrategies to plan, monitor, and self-adjust during the grammar learning process, but goodlanguage learners were more conscious and used more strategies to do so by constantreflecting and evaluating; in addition, poor language learners tended to lessen their studytime or even give up efforts without seeking for help and support when frustrated or stuckin their studies, but good language learners would do vice versa. In conclusion, there weresharp contrast between good language learners and poor language learners, because thelatter could not generate, adjust or use the right and effective strategy in study according todifferent learning tasks and content.