A Case Study On The Correlation Between College English Majors’ Learning Styles And Reading Strategies At Zhaotong University, Yunnan

As an important aspect in English language teaching, reading plays an important role in successful English learning. Previous researches reveal that learning styles and reading strategies are two key factors influencing the students’ reading efficiency. Based on existing theories on learning styles and reading strategies, this study conducts an empirical study to investigate the learning style preference and the characteristics of reading strategy choice among the population of college English majors with an aim to provide some implications for improving the teaching and learning of college English reading.The investigation of learning styles covers four dimensions:perception, affect, personality and cognition; the survey of reading strategies involves three subcategories: meta-cognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies. This paper adopts quantitative research methods to address the following questions:(i) What is the general distribution pattern of the college English majors’learning styles and English reading strategies?(ii) What is the correlation between the college English majors’learning styles and English reading strategies?(iii) What pedagogical implications can we obtain from the results of the investigation for effectively employing the students’learning styles and English reading strategies?There were101second-year college English majors from Zhaotong University participating in the survey,87of whom validly completed the two questionnaires:one is used to investigate their learning styles preference, including Reid’s Perceptual Learning Style Preference Survey (PLSPS), Witkin’s Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), Ely’s Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (SLTAS), and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised (EPQ-R); the other is revised from Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) to investigate the students’use of English reading strategies.The collected data were analyzed with the Statistical Product and Service Solutions software (SPSS19.0). The results obtained from the descriptive statistics analysis, the independent samples T-test and the Pearson correlation analysis are as follows:(i) The subjects have multiple preferences for perceptual learning styles, generally tactile and kinesthetic perceptual learning styles as their major styles alongside with auditory, visual, individual and group learning styles as their minor styles. As for affective learning style, the subjects tend to be low TOA learners than high TOA learners. In terms of personality, the subjects do not demonstrate distinct trends of personality. With regard to cognitive learning style, the students are more field-dependent learners than field-independent learners.(ii) The subjects adopt all reading strategies at the moderate level. The rank of frequency of application of English reading strategies is social/affective strategies at the first place followed by meta-cognitive strategies secondly and cognitive strategies at last.(iii) The students’overall strategy use does not show significant differences in the degree of TOA, the trend of personality and the field dependence-independence cognitive style. However, some differences can still be found:high TOA students are more active than low TOA students in the use of reading strategies while they both present an equal level in cognitive use. Field-dependent learners employ social/affective strategies more often than field-independent learners while they both perform an equal level in meta-cognitive and cognitive use. (iv) Some perceptual learning styles have significant correlations with several reading strategies. It is found that visual, tactile and kinesthetic learning styles are positively related to reading strategies and auditory, group and individual learning styles have no correlations with reading strategies. The affective and cognitive styles are not related to reading strategies while personality has statistically significant correlations with meta-cognitive strategies.Based on the above findings, the study advances some pedagogical implications:(i) English teachers should strengthen the students’consciousness of learning styles and English reading strategies, encourage them to understand and expand their individual learning styles and strategy use;(ii) In order to facilitate reading efficiency, it is expected that teachers make efforts to integrate their teaching styles and methods with the students’learning styles and enable them to choose English reading strategies compatible with their learning styles.