A Survey Of The Use Of Language Learning Strategies By Excellent English Learners

This thesis is a research about the use of language learning strategies by excellentEnglish learners in senior high school.Learning strategies play a very important role in the process of language learning.Using learning strategies appropriately will improve learners’ learning ability and enhancegreater self-confidence (Oxford,1990). At the same time, learning strategies havesignificant influence on the lifestyle of the individual. The obtaining of learning strategieswill lay a good foundation for one’s life-long learning. New English Curriculum Standardsof High School (2003) defines the use of learning strategies as one of the aims ofcurriculum. Teaching effective learning strategies has been considered as an effectivemeasure to improve students’ learning efficiency, lighten learning burden and enhanceteaching quality.The survey of language learning strategies has also become one of the hot issues inthe current educational field. However, among innumerous investigations about learningstrategies at home and abroad, few concentrate on the English learning strategies used bythe excellent English learners in senior high school. To know about how these excellentEnglish learners make use of learning strategies will help teachers choose reasonable andeffective teaching strategies, meanwhile provide the students having difficulties in Englishlearning in senior high school with beneficial enlightenment.This paper presents the general definition of learning strategies by scholars,summarizes the domestic and overseas researches on learning strategies, and then comesup with the definition of learning strategies in this investigation. This paper also putsforwards the definition of excellent English learners in senior high school: In this survey,we take the students whose English score are at or high than120points (full scores are150)in National College Entrance Examination and the final examination in senior high schoolas excellent English learners.On the basis of the classification system of language learning strategies and StrategiesInventory for Language Learning (SILL) composed by American applied linguist Rebecca Oxford, adopting the approach of empirical research, the survey questionnaires weredelivered to256students who have just passed National College Entrance Examination in2013. In conjunction with interviews on individual students, the use of language learningstrategies by excellent English learners in senior high school was investigated. The datawere analyzed with the assistance of the Social Scientific Statistic software SPSS11.5andExcel2003software. The main research findings are as follows: The excellent Englishlearners have advantages in using meta-cognitive strategies and cognitive strategies;Learning strategies used by excellent English learners have a positive and frequent contactwith each other, especially meta-cognitive strategies and cognitive strategies employed byexcellent English learners have very close relationship; The excellent English learners tryto look for opportunities to read as much as possible in English and they always or almostalways attempt to use various language learning strategies to learn English well; Most ofthe excellent English learners say it’s very necessary for them to learn some vocabularylearning strategies and they also put forward some suggestions of vocabulary teaching inclass.This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One introduces the background of thestudy, the purpose and significance of the research and the structure of the thesis. ChapterTwo presents the definition of learning strategies, the definition of excellent Englishlearners, the classification of language learning strategies, the researches of learningstrategies at home and abroad, the strategies used by the good language learners. ChapterThree is the research design. Chapter Four gives the data analysis and results. Chapter Fiveis the training of English learning strategies in senior high school. Chapter Six serves as theconclusion of the thesis.