A Study Of English Language Learning Strategies Of Middle School Students

With the rapid development of globalization, more and more countries begin to pay attention to the cultural exchange. Actually, as a lingua franca, English is the bridge for mutual understanding and obtains the universal approval in the world. In the past few decades, with the prominence of learners’ learning process, the studies of second language acquisition is gradually changing from teacher centeredness to student centeredness. The transition from "what to learn" to "how to learn" makes the English language learning strategies which are the important factors influencing the students’ learning quality attached more and more attention. These existing studies of language learning strategies are all based on the use of English language learning strategies as well as their effects on the English achievements, including the using frequency of different learning strategies, the gender differences in the learning strategies use, the promotion effect of learning strategies on the English achievements, the gender differences in the relationships between learning strategies and English performances, the factors influencing the learning strategies and so on. However, most of studies mainly use the descriptive analysis in the research and seldom involve the predictive abilities of learning strategies for English achievements. Therefore, this paper aims to provide the studies of language learning strategies with a new research direction.With the review of precious researches on the English language learning strategies, this current study is on the basis of Oxford’s theory, and investigates the relationships between learning strategies and English achievements in middle school by using correlation analysis, variance analysis and multiple regression analysis. The purpose of this current study is to find the predictive abilities of learning strategies for middle school students’ English achievements and the gender differences existing in the prediction, and to offer the feasible and enforceable suggestions in detail on the training of learning strategies in the English teaching in middle school. This current research sent out the questionnaires which have been modified to 285 students from the third grade in a middle school, and finally received 223 valid questionnaires. Among the 223 students, there are 101 male students and 122 female students. In terms of the analysis results, all the six categories of language learning strategies are used widely by middle school students, however, among these strategies, relatively, cognitive strategies and affective strategies are employed more frequently than others; in contrast, the using frequency of memory strategies and social strategies is relatively lower. Meanwhile, this research also finds that there are positive correlations between the six categories of language learning strategies and middle school students" English achievements, and the cognitive strategies and affective strategies have the predictive abilities for the English performances. In other words, the more frequently and correctly the two strategies are used, the better the English achievements will be. In addition, this research investigates the gender differences in the prediction of learning strategies to academic achievements, and the results show that cognitive strategies and memory strategies can predict the male students" achievements, while cognitive strategies and affective strategies have the predictive abilities for the female students’ English performances. So there are the differences in the predictive abilities of learning strategies between different genders.As the results mentioned above, although the middle school students apply all the six categories of learning strategies in their English learning, they prefer the cognitive strategies and affective strategies best, because English teachers almost employ the cognitive strategies to spread knowledge due to the unified English teaching methods in China, and middle school students are in the important stage of affective development and have the high sensitivity of emotion, hence their learning attitudes are affected easily by the internal or external factors. At the same time, cognitive strategies are relatively common and stable, and adapt to the different ages of learners, so they can predict the academic achievements. Positive emotions, attitudes and motivations have the strong promotion effects on the English learning, and especially have more impacts on the middle school students who are in the important stage of affective development; therefore, affective strategies can also predict their academic achievements. Finally, male students have more visual and spatial memory than female students, so they have the advantages of memory system; female students are more sensitive than male students, therefore, they have the advantages of emotional processing. As a result, there are gender differences in the prediction of language learning strategies to the English achievements.Since English learning strategies have the close connections with the students’academic performances, it requires us to focus on the training of learning methods and learning skills in the English teaching, to enhance the students’ awareness of using learning strategies, and to change the educational methods from teacher centeredness of traditional teaching mode to student centeredness of new-style teaching mode, so as to reform the teaching plan and confirm the foundational English education in middle school, and to alter the status quo of teachers working hard, students learning painfully, unsatisfactory academic achievements and students’ lower English proficiency levels. Therefore, this study consider that teachers should not simply encourage students to use language learning strategies in middle school, but also pay attention to the methods of learning strategy training and the training of cognitive strategies, affective strategies and memory strategies in the language teaching according to the local conditions of each individual, so as to arouse the students’learning potential and learning initiative, increase the learning efficiency and achieve satisfactory learning results.