The Correlation Between Middle School Students’ English Language Learning Strategies And Achievements

In the last few decades, the researchers studied the teaching method with high enthusiasm, but no satisfactory effect was received. The Audio-lingual Approach, Situational Method came out in the 1960 s.In addition, Cognitive Approach, the Communicative Approach came out in the 1970 s.Then the Silent Way, the Total Physical Response Approach and other new teaching methods appeared continually. However the efficiency of foreign language learning is not improved. Since the 1970 s, in the process of studying cognitive psychology, the researchers have gradually known the fact that the teaching can not be effective enough without studies on both teaching and learning method. With further research, the importance of language learning strategies in English teaching has been gradually uncovered. In recent years, new curriculum reform and quality-oriented education has been implemented in our country. The reform requires to students’ development as the educational focus, to improving the student’s learning style, to advocating independent learning. It contributes a lot to the training of language learning strategy which is used in middle school English teaching. In the English Curriculum Standards of Compulsory Education(the 2011 edition), one of the main objectives of the new English curriculum standard for middle schools is the cultivation and development of middle schools students’ learning strategies. The new English curriculum standard points out that helping students to use learning strategies effectively is not only advantageous for the improvement of students’ learning efficiency, but also beneficial for the cultivation of their autonomous learning abilities that will lay the foundation for students’ lifelong sustainable learning.The primary objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between middle school students’ English learning strategies and achievements. And in particular, it is to find what the overall and specific application of middle school students’ language learning strategies is and what the distinctions in strategy application between low-score groups and high-score groups are.The study was carried out at Zhoucun No.3 Middle School in Zibo city, Shandong Province. There were two parallel classes with the same teacher: experimental class(Class 3) and control class(Class 4). Each class was divided into high-score group and low-score group. The teacher taught the two classes in different ways. The experimental class was taught with the language learning strategies while the control class was taught in a usual way. In order to collect data, the researcher used three instruments – teachers’ interviews, pre-questionnaires and post-questionnaires, pre-tests and post-tests. According to the analysis of the experiment’s result, the researcher gets the following conclusion:Firstly, by means of the study of language learning strategies, the use degree of junior middle school students on the "cognitive strategies, control strategies, communication strategies and resource strategies" has been significantly improved. Furthermore, it also reveals that among the four categories strategies, cognitive strategies are used the most frequently, followed by resource strategies, communicative strategies and control strategies.Secondly, it is clear that high-score group students’ performance in applying strategies is in general significantly better than low-score group students’. Furthermore, their performance in applying the four types of strategies respectively also better than low-score group students’Finally, it also shows that the better junior middle school students’ mastery on "cognitive strategy, control strategy, communicative strategy and resource strategy" are, the better their English achievement will be. In addition, the longer time junior middle school students take to use language learning strategies, the better their English achievement will be. That is to say, the use of students’ language learning strategies, to a certain extent, affects the students’ English achievements.To sum up,this paper is an empirical research of revealing the application of junior middle students’ language learning strategies and their influences on students’ English achievements. The significance of the present study lies in the fact that the research implications will be beneficial for the improvement of junior middle students’ learning efficacy and autonomous learning abilities. What’s more, it is profitable for the further researches and English classroom teaching.