A Survey Of English Learning Strategies In Shandong Medical Colleges

Recently, individual differences, such as age, gender, strategy, personality, attitude, learning environment, aptitude, motivation, cognitive style have been stressed in language teaching research. Among them, language learning strategy(LLS) is the most important factor affecting the outcome of language learning. Since1970s, more and more people realized the importance of English and tried to learn English well. But only a few people can dominate it and use it as their own language. Being lack of effective learning strategies is one of reasons. Since one’s language proficiency development is based on his fundamental knowledge of the language, language learning strategies, as a bridge, can help the learner put their basic knowledge into practice efficiently.Students in medical colleges(MCs) are very special. They all have experienced the college entrance examination and have their own ways in learning English. However, the whole society has higher requirement for their professional level. Because if a doctor wants to make a big achievement in his/her career, he/she has to communicate with foreign experts and learn their advanced medical technology. And English, as a tool, plays a very important role in clinical practice and medical research. So knowing what learning strategy is and how to use it can help them learn English well. However, the studies about language learning strategy of students in medical colleges are scant. So doing research on language learning strategy in medical colleges has realistic significance.The present research studied one hundred and ninety subjects including male and female from Mount Tai Medical College, Jining Medical College, Weifang Medical College, Qingdao Medical College and Binzhou Medical College. One of the main instruments for survey is Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL) including memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies. The other one is scores obtained from a test. Then all the valid data was put into computer and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS13.0). First, descriptive analysis was done to examine the overall frequency of strategy use by the students in medical colleges. Second, Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to test the correlation between strategy use and English proficiency. Finally, independent sample t-tests were carried out to identify the differences in using strategies between good language learners and less successful learners, male and female in medical college.The results indicate:First, the frequency of language learning strategies use of subjects is in medium level. Second, memory strategies,cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies and social strategies all demonstrated significant correlations with English achievement. Among these categories, compensation strategies had the strongest correlation with English achievement. Third, no significant difference was found between male and female. Good language learners(GLLs) used a wider range of strategies at a higher frequency than less successful learners(LSLs).The study has enriched the research of strategy use in medical colleges and broaden the scope of research on language strategy use.