A Correlation Study On English Learning Adaptability With Teacher-student Relationship And Academic Achievement Of Rural Junior Middle School Students

English learning adaptability is the ability of learners to overcome difficultiesand adjust themselves to new English learning environments, for example when theyare going up to a upper education system. In middle schools located in rural areas,where education lags relatively behind owing to obvious disadvantages in economiccondition, teaching facilities and teachers’ quality, students’ English learning interestare not stimulated and cultivated fully at primary school stage and English languageproficiency remains low. Therefore, when they go into junior middle school and beginto face some new changes, for example, different learning environment, new learningcontent, different learning method and new English teacher, there may be certaindegree of adaptation problem in English learning. While it can be an important issuein knowing how to help these students to learn, how they are able to adapt to the newenvironment and what factors can be related to their adaptability is unknown. So far,inadequate attention has been paid to the potential problems and little understandingof its relationship to other factors has been brought to light. Therefore, the aim of thepresent study is to investigate the degree of such adaptability and explore itsrelationship between it and two essential factors as teacher-student relationship andacademic achievement of the students.To achieve the goal,309grade-seven and grade-eight students from six classes inthree rural middle schools were invited to a questionnaire survey and interviews.Three research questions were addressed:1) What is the general situation of Englishlearning adaptability in rural junior middle school?2) Are there any significantdifferences of English learning adaptability in grade, gender and achievement level?3)Does English learning adaptability correlate with teacher-student relationship andacademic achievement in rural junior middle school?As a result, the investigations show that the English learning adaptability of ruraljunior middle school students is at the medium level; there is adaptation problem,particularly that of grammar aspect concerning textbook. There are significantdifferences of English learning adaptability in gender, but no significant difference ingrade except for that in textbook dimension. There is significant and positivecorrelation between the three dimensions of English learning adaptability and teacher-student relationship in closeness and dependency dimensions; significant butnegative correlation is found between English learning adaptability andteacher-student relationship in avoidance and conflict dimensions. English learningadaptability is significantly and positively correlated with academic achievement.Another interesting finding is while there is significant correlation betweenEnglish learning adaptability and teacher-student relationship after eliminating theeffect of academic achievement, and between English learning adaptability andacademic achievement when eliminates the effect of teacher-student relationship,academic achievement and teacher-student relationship present insignificant, almostnegligible correlation after eliminating the effect of English learning adaptability.Based on the results, the author put forward some advice for improving thestudents’ English learning adaptability of rural junior middle school from the textbook,teaching pattern, students themselves and teacher-student relationship aspects.