An Investigation On Language Learning Strategies Used By Students In Non-governmental Vocational College

Since1970s, the dominant role of learners in the learning process has been affirmed. Therefore, the study emphasis of language teaching shifted from "how to teach" to "how to learn", that is to study the general rules used by learners during the process of foreign language learning and the influence of specific factors towards foreign language learning process and learning effect. From then on, researchers started to pay attention to the study of language learning strategies. The research of language learning strategy starts from1980s in China. The subjects of study are primarily students in colleges and universities and teenagers. However, in recent years, with an increasing number of enrolling students in higher education, public education itself cannot satisfy the need of national higher education. Therefore, non-governmental colleges and universities have rapidly developed and they become an indispensable part of the higher education. Nevertheless, there are few studies whose subjects are non-governmental vocational college students in the field of language learning strategy study.After reviewing the background and related studies of the language learning strategies, the thesis, with the methodology of qualitative and quantitative study, takes192non-English majors in Wuhan Bioengineering Institute as study subjects, to address the following questions:1. To investigate the overall situation of learning strategies employed by non-governmental vocational college students.2. To find out the differences in learning strategy application between the students of different genders, different areas, different achievements as well as different backgrounds of high school.3. To give some suggestions on vocational college English teaching based on the study.All the data collected are analyzed with SPSS (17.0) and the conclusions can be drawn as:1. The overall situation of using language learning strategies in students from non-governmental vocational college is not optimistic. In the six categories of language learning strategies, students use compensation strategy the most frequently, while the memory strategy the least. 2. Language learning strategy is positively correlated to students’language proficiency. Among the six categories of language learning strategies, memory strategy, meta cognitive strategy and social strategy are significantly related to the learning proficiency according to p-value.3. The researcher makes study on the relation between language learning strategy use and personal factors which includes gender, background of high school and area where students come from. However, none of the factors correlated to language learning strategy using in statistics. In the frequency of overall use of language learning strategics, female students, students from urban area and the arts group employ language learning strategies slightly more often than male students, students from rural area and the science group.It is suggested that teachers in non-governmental vocational college should combine strategy training with ordinary language teaching; enhance students’ cooperative language learning ability; offer private instruction to students with low language proficiency; alleviate students’language learning anxiety; and cultivate the students’autonomous learning ability.