A Study Of Matching Between Teaching Strategies And Cognitive Styles Of Polarization In English Learning Of Senior High Science Students

The traditional attitude to teaching as being more important than learning makes Chinese teachers put too much attention on their teaching strategies and means. However, as one of the most important factors in individual difference, which influences learning process, students’cognitive styles are often ignored in the teaching practice, resulting in failure of effective matching between cognitive styles and teaching strategies and thus affect students’English academic records. Meanwhile, some teachers keep their single teaching strategies unchanged for a long time and this may match the cognitive styles of some students while ignore those of others, which leads to polarization in students’English learning. Such problem is especially common among those science students, whose thinking are more logical and rational and are less affective and emotional.This thesis aims at exploring effective countermeasures in dealing with polarization by adopting and combining the matching and mismatching theory of teachers’teaching strategies and students’cognitive styles. Cognitive styles refer to learners’preferred way of perceiving, processing, storing and extracting information in the process of cognition. Because of its innateness and durability, one’s cognitive styles are hard to change and their influence on students’learning can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. To adopt proper teaching strategies based upon students’ individual cognitive styles, English teachers, on the one hand, need to make teaching strategies match the positive factors in learners’cognitive styles or match learners’ preferred way of cognition, namely the strategy of matching. The negative factors in learners’cognitive styles, on the other hand, can be offset by teaching strategies, namely the strategy of mismatching. So the effective matching and mismatching of teaching strategies and cognitive styles can both develop learners’advantages and offset their disadvantages. By using this as theoretical basis, the thesis conducted an investigation on high school students of science in senior 3, which come from eight parallel classes in Neijiang No.6 middle school. In order to determine the weak and top students in polarization of English study, the thesis has made a comparison between their scores of the final English test in the first semester of grade three and the scores of their English entrance exam of grade one. Finally,30 top students and 30 weakest students are selected as samples of the study. Then through questionnaire investigation and data analysis of these students, this study tries to figure out the following two questions involved in polarization of English study for high school students of science.1. Is there any difference in cognitive styles between the top students and weak students involved in polarization of English study?2. What is the situation of matching between teachers’English teachingstrategies and students’cognitive styles for the top students andweak students involved in polarization?3. How to handle science students’problem of polarization in English study through effective matching and mismatching between teachers’English teaching strategy and students’cognitive styles.Based on the conclusion of above study and analysis, the thesis discussed and put forward some effective countermeasures in dealing with polarization of English study for high school students of science.