A Study Of The Correlation Between Parents’ Factors And English Achievement In Rural Junior High School

In recent years, there are a mass of studies on language learning, in which, the social study has been gaining much attention from scholars both at home and abroad. English learning, as language learning, is closely linked with the social environment in many ways. And parents’ factors, as an important part of the social environment, affect students’ English learning greatly. Since last century, many experts and scholars from both in China and abroad have done a lot of related researches in urban areas, while such studies in rural areas are rarely. This study is built on Stern and Spolsky’s “social context of language learning”. Besides, it is also based on a questionnaire survey of students and their parents in rural junior high school in Panzhihua City. Participants are 296 EFL(English as a foreign language) learners who are all from Hongge junior high school of Yanbian County, Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province of China. The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlations between parents’ factors and students’ English academic achievement in rural junior high schools to urge parents to participate in students’ English learning; therefore, to improve students’ English learning achievement and contribute to prompt China’s educational equity. In addition, the findings will complete the research of the social study of language learning. The results indicate that:There are some correlations between parents’ factors and students’ English achievement in rural junior high schools. Some parents’ factors such as parents’ economic status, parents’ occupation, parents’ expectation on students’ learning English, parents’ parenting patten, parents’ attitude to students’ English learning and the communication between parents and students affect students’ English learning achievement. In addition, the research results prove that the subjective factors of parents’ factors influence students’ English learning achievement more remarkable than the objective factors. And some of the parents’ subjective factors such as parents’ expectation on students’ learning English, parents’ parenting patterns, and parents’ attitude to students’ English learning influence students’ English learning achievement significantly. According to the research results, the author gives some advice to parents, English teachers, schools and local government of rural areas.