A Study Of English Learning Strategies Used By Senior Three Students

Nowadays, there is a tendency that the main attention on teacher-centered education haschanged into the learner-centered one in the field of school pedagogy. Among the factorswhich have an influence on student’s learning, learning strategy is one of the most importantfactors. And in2003, the National Standard for Compulsory Senior English Curriculum statedthat senior students were required to develop their abilities in applying learning strategy todifferent subjects. In2005, the National Standard for Compulsory Senior English Curriculumhas posed that the training of students’ learning strategies is one of the prominent aspects intheir curriculum. Therefore, investigating students’ strategy use is very important. It not onlyhelps teachers give students a correct guidance, but also helps students study easily andefficiently. However, a large number of investigations which are largely based on theclassification of Oxford (1990) are conducted among college students. Thus it is necessary tohave a research aiming at senior students, especially based on the National Standard forCompulsory Senior English Curriculum.According to the National Standard for Compulsory Senior English Curriculum,English learning strategies have four classifications: cognitive strategies, monitoringstrategies, resource strategies and communicative strategies. To facilitate the research, YuanChanghuan divided learning strategies into five parts: cognitive strategies, regulatingstrategies, communicative strategies, resource strategies and affective strategies. And thisthesis is based on his questionnaire to investigate Grade Three students’ English learningstrategies use. In addition, there are many factors which influence students’ use of learningstrategies. Generally speaking, these factors can be concluded into two aspects, one is learnerfactor; the other is non-learner factor. And in this thesis, the researcher investigates somepsychological factors affecting the process of choosing learning strategies, including learningmotivation, self-efficacy and learning attribution. The study mainly adopted the questionnaire survey. The author investigated about279students from senior three students in Linjin Senior Middle School which is located in LinyiCounty, Yun Cheng City, and made an analysis of the learning strategies used by the seniorthree students and some individual psychological factors which may have an influence on theEnglish learning strategies. The author analyzed the collected data through SPSS17.0, theconcrete steps used in the procedures of analyzing include descriptive statistics, independentsamples T-test, correlation analysis and regression analysis. By doing this research, the authorhopes these results may provide a theoretic practical reference to students and teachers in theirstudying and teaching.The following part is the findings of this study:(1) The characteristics of Englishlearning strategy use among senior three students are at a high level, but not very high.(2)There appears to be a significant difference in overall strategy use between male students andfemale students.(3) There is also significant difference in overall strategy use between artsstudents and science students.(4) Successful students tend to use strategies more often thanaverage and unsuccessful students in their learning process.(5) English learning strategieshave positive influence on senior three students’ English academic achievements.(6)Learning motivation, self-efficacy and learning attribution have positive effect on the choiceof students’ English learning strategies.The thesis provides the explanation and analyses of the findings and also provides someuseful suggestions to teachers’ teaching and students’ learning.