A Survey Study On English Note-taking And Note-using By High School Students

As an important method accepted by Chinese high school students,English note-taking and note-using have a magnificent influence on study.Therefore,setting up a positive attitude towards English notes,grasping effective techniques and forming appropriate habits not only can help students to get improved but also enhance the learning confidence.The thesis adopts questionnaire and interview to investigate high school students' English note-taking and note-using.The research questions addressed in the thesis are:1)What is the general situation of English note-taking and English note-using by high school students?2)Are there any differences in English note-taking and English note-using between male and female students?If yes,what are the differences?3)Are there any differences in English note-taking and English note-using between low and high achievers?If yes,what are the differences?Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted in this thesis.The former involves a self-designed questionnaire and the latter involves interviews.The whole internal reliability of the questionnaire is.873.The questionnaire is handed out to 217 students from Binghui High School and finally 206 students are valid.Then the data is processed by SPSS21.0.The qualitative research is a semi-structured interview with 10 students selected from those whose questionnaires are considered valid.The interview is carried out in Chinese and the whole process is tape-recorded.Afterwards,the results are transcribed into English and the transcriptions of the interview are carefully analyzed.Through detailed analysis of both quantitative and qualitative research,the thesis obtains the following findings:First of all,the present situation of high school students' English note-taking and note-using is basically satisfactory.In terms of attitudes,high school students not only are able to recognize the significance of taking English notes but also they still stick to taking English notes.In terms of purposes,item 4 Preventing from forgetting English teachers' instructions is the biggest motivation for students to take English notes in class.In terms of techniques,Special notebooks for English notes and Clean handwriting are most used by students.In terms of perfecting,many students are not willing to perfect the English notes after class.In terms of reviewing,most students are willing to review English notes everyday even if it is due to the teacher's requirements.Secondly,there are significant differences between male and female students in terms of attitudes,purposes and reviewing,and there are no significant differences between them in terms of techniques and perfeting.In terms of attitudes,female students hold a more positive attitude towards note-taking and they are more persistent in taking notes.In terms of purposes,female students pay more attention to such purposes as Listing key points and difficult points and Helping to keep concentrated in classes.In terms of reviewing,female students will be more likely to ask students or teachers for unclear points.Thirdly,there are significant differences between low and high achievers in terms of purposes and techniques,and there are no significant differences between them in terms of attitudes,perfecting and reviewing.In terms of purposes,item 3 Listing key points and difficult points and item 4 Preventing from forgetting English teachers ' instructions do have significant differences between low and high achievers.And high achievers have clearer purposes of taking English notes.In terms of techniques,item 7 Special notebooks for taking notes(p=.000),item 8 Clean handwriting(p=.014),item 9 Pens of different colors for different types of content(p=.025),and item 11 Selective note-taking(p=.044)show that the differences are significant,and high achievers performed better than low achievers in these items.The research results may offer some guidance and significance on education of high school.However,the research is preliminary and many topics on high school students' English note-taking and note-using still deserve to be discussed.