Examining Senior High School Students’ Cognitive Dissonance In English Learning During Transition From Junior High Schools To Senior High Schools

Most junior high school students enter senior high school after the Junior High School Level Test. Along with the further English teaching in senior high school, the freshmen, who are in the transition between the junior and senior middle schools, show various symptoms of inadaptation in mental and learning aspects, that is to say, they have cognitive dissonance problems in English learning. Without being well settled, these problems would have some serious effects on the quality of the high school English teaching and the development of the students themselves. As a consequence, these cognitive dissonance problems must draw great attention of English teachers.The cognitive dissonance theory put forward by Festinger holds the view that there may exist an "inappropriate" relationship between the cognitive elements.Once the cognitive dissonance exists, it would result in the pressure to reduce the dissonance or to avoid the growth of the dissonance, whose results can be seen from the changes of cognition, the changes of behavior and the selective contact of information and opinions. Cognitive dissonance theory, in a sense, can help people reduce or even remove their psychological tension, anxiety and boredom, and then generate the intrinsic motivation to reduce or eliminate the dissonance to obtain the inner balance, which can lead to the changes in the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, or behavior. In the meanwhile, cognitive dissonance theory provides three methods to solve the dissonance: to change your understanding of the behavior, to change your behavior, and to change the understanding of the results of your action.Based on the features of the theory, my study suggests that these three methods can just be applied to the study of examining the senior high school students’ cognitive dissonance in English learning during transition from junior high schools to senior high schools. The purpose of this study is to conclude senior high school students’ cognitive dissonance problems in English learning during the transition from junior high schools to senior high schools and deeply analyse the potential causes to help the English teachers create a platform for the students to balance the uncoordinated elements and effectively correct the students’ bad learning habits and to have the students get used to the English learning in high school as soon as possible, help them complete the smooth transition in English curriculum between the junior and senior middle schools, and lay a good foundation for the following English study in high school and later on.