A Study On Learning Strategies In Senior High School English Textbooks

Language learning strategies have played a more and more important part in teaching of English as a second language and English as a foreign language. The overall objective of National English Curriculum Standards (NECS) is to develop students’ comprehensive language proficiency, including learning strategy training, thus students can know the ways to improve learning efficiency and be responsible for their own study as well. Therefore, learning strategies could be regarded as one of the key elements for making students become life-long learners. Textbooks are considered as the main carrier of learning knowledge and the core of English curriculum implementation, so it is an effective way to insert learning strategies in the textbooks in order to foster the awareness of students’strategy use.The textbooks Senior English for Schools (SEFS) published by Chongqing University Press are widely used in senior high schools in Chongqing at present, with a certain degree of influence. This thesis will analyze the language learning strategies in the SEFS from Book1to Book5, aiming at exploring three research questions:(1) What learning strategies and sub-strategies are used in the textbooks to develop English language skills?(2)Which learning strategies are the most and the least dominant in the target textbooks?(3) How the learning strategies are presented in the target textbooks?In order to answer these three research questions, the study makes a detailed investigation into specific language learning strategies, their percentage and their presenting ways in the target textbooks by recording method, based on the Oxford’s classification of language learning strategy, then compares these learning strategies with those in NECS, and finally provides some suggestions for effective teaching and learning.