An Investigation Into Senior High School Students' Perceptual Learning Style

Over recent decades, researchers and English teachers have gradually shifted their attention from improving teacher-centered classroom teaching to helping individual student. Nowadays, learners' individual characteristics and differences have received more and more attention in EFL teaching all over the world. Of all the individual differences, learning style is an important variable and can exert great impact on teachers' classroom teaching. Many Western researchers have conducted a lot of empirical studies in this area and gained fruitful findings. However, little research has been carried out in China. What's more, very little research has been conducted on the learning styles of senior high school students.The purpose of this thesis was to identify the perceptual learning style of senior high school students. It attempted to explore the effects of gender, academic major and language proficiency on students' perceptual learning styles. To collect the data for this study, Reid's Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire was used. It was administered to 184 students in Nanchang No.2 Senior High School. Descriptive analysis and independent t-test were conducted to get the quantitative statistics. In addition, ten students were invited to participate in an interview.Results revealed that students had a tendency for multiple learning styles, and that tactile learning style was the most preferred learning style. However, the students' least preferred style was the visual learning style. Next, female students favored kinesthetic learning style more significantly than male students. But for individual learning style, male students preferred this style better than females. In addition, art students more significantly preferred auditory and group learning styles than science students, but science students showed high preferences for kinesthetic and tactile learning styles. Finally, high achievers preferred kinesthetic and tactile learning styles more significantly than low achievers.On the basis of the findings mentioned above, several implications were offered for English teaching and learning in Chinese senior high schools. First, teachers should raise students' awareness of learning style and identify their learning style by using diverse learning style inventories. Secondly, teachers should match their teaching styles with students' learning styles. Teachers should provide multiple sensory stimuli to satisfy diverse learning needs. Thirdly, teachers should help students extend their learning styles. In addition, teachers should balance instructional approach, making it fit into student's multiple learning styles. Teachers should tailor their teaching methods according to their students' style preferences. Finally, teachers should employ computer-assisted instruction to expand students' multidimensional learning styles.