A Study On Classroom Environment In Private Middle School

Classroom Environment, also called classroom atmosphere, or classroom climate, refers to the students’ or teachers’ feeling about the classroom where they stay, which is the potential factor for students’ development. The study of classroom environment can help us to recognize that which factor can promote the students’ ability of master language more effectively.This study is based on Lewin’s Field Theory and Murray’s Need-Press model. By using questionnaire MSECEI (Middle School English Classroom Environment Inventory), the researcher evaluates students’ perceptions on classroom environment of private middle school in Shijiazhuang area with the help of statistical software SPSS17.0.During research procedure, the researcher dedicated to answer three questions:1) The Overall Situation of classroom environment of private middle schools in Shijiazhuang area;2) Do the students have gender differences on the perceptions of the English classroom environment? If do, on which aspects?3) Is there any relation between the perceptions of the English classroom environment and the achievement of learning?By assessing seven dimensions of the questionnaire, the researcher gets a general view about students’ perceptions on classroom environment. Among the seven factors, students’ perception on Students Cohesiveness and Task Orientation are most positive, indicating that students have harmonious relationship between classmates and attach importance to English learning; while the scale of Teacher Support and Involvement are not as well as the two factors mentioned before. Both teachers and students should pay attention to these two dimensions, and try to change the situation, and then the classroom environment can play more active role in English learning process.The comparison of different perceptions on classroom environment between male and female students shows that there exists statistically significant difference between these two genders. Generally speaking, girls’ perceptions of the seven dimensions are higher than boys’, and girls perceive classroom environment more consistently. These phenomenons indicate that girls take more positive attitudes toward classroom environment than boys. What’s more, among the seven factors, boys and girls have statistically significant differences on two of them. Girls prefer to cooperate with their classmates, while boys would like to finish tasks independently; girls would like to take part in class activities; boys’ degree of involvement is not as high as girls’.According to the results of analysis, there is a direct relationship between students’ perceptions on classroom environment and their testing scores. In addition, different levels students perceive the classroom environment differently. In general, the students who get high scores perceive more positively and vice versa.Based on the results of these three mentioned questions, the researcher proposes some implications for both English teachers and students, which will help the teachers understanding their classes better and also can help to create a favorable learning environment for students.