A Study On The Correlation Between Junior High School Students’ Gender Differences In Classroom Behavior And Their English Performance

In China, the learning results of junior high school students are far from satisfactory, thecauses of which are too complex to expound. Students heavily depend on classroominstruction in English learning in junior high school. Individual differences in learners’behaviors in the language classroom raised researchers’ concern for the gender differences instudents’ learning behaviors in the classroom. This thesis intends to study on the correlationbetween gender differences in classroom behaviors and students’ English performance injunior high school. The aim of the research is to find out whether there exists a relationshipbetween students’ gender differences in classroom behavior and their English performance injunior high school. If there is such a relationship, the specific questions are as follows:1. In what aspects do gender differences affect students’ classroom behavior in juniorhigh school?2. What is the relationship between students’ gender difference in classroom behaviorand their English performance in junior high school?3. What can a teacher do to effectively cope with the gender differences in theirclassroom behavior in junior high school?The study is based on Elisabeth Hayes classroom questionnaire. The above questionnairemainly covers the following seven types of classroom behaviors: verbal participation,dominating others, self-disclosure, learning orientation, support-seeking, sociability andself-assurance. The data of the study come from the questionnaires and the score of final termEnglish test of two classes’ students of grade eight in Fulai Junior High School in Rizhao,Shandong Province. The results of the study were analyzed by the author. And the statisticalanalysis was handled with SPSS16.0. Average score of each student’s classroom behaviorswas analyzed via independent sample t-test. The data of male and female students’ classroombehaviors and their English performance was analyzed by Pearson Correlation Analysis. Atlast, the data was handled by Multiple Regression Analysis.The major findings of the study are as follows.1. Gender differences affect learningorientation and support-seeking in students’ classroom behaviors in junior high school.2.There are significant correlations between gender differences in Learning Orientation,Support-Seeking and Self-Disclosure of students’ classroom behaviors and their Englishperformance in junior high school.3. Teachers should appropriately arrange and designclassroom activities according to gender differences in classroom behaviors and students’ learning orientation to improve students’ learning motivations. Then teachers shouldencourage the students, especially the male students to seek for supports if they encounterwith problems in English learning. At the same time, teachers should encourage students totake active part in class and give more opportunities to the students who are not good atself-disclosure to improve their learning achievements.Towards the end of the thesis, implications of the research, limitations of the researchand suggestions related to the future study of the correlation between students’ genderdifferences in classroom behaviors and their English performance in junior high school wereprovided by the author.