A Study Of Senior High School Students' Difference In Ambiguity Tolerance In English Learning

Ambiguity tolerance,as an important cognitive and affective factor,has a significant influence on students' English learning achievements,so an abundance of research on ambiguity tolerance has been conducted.However,in light of the previous studies,the subjects were mainly college students or adult learners.As for the correlation study,only one or several language skills were researched.In addition,the attention has mainly been paid to the correlation study between ambiguity tolerance and learning results,but the learner factors were hardly considered,such as gender,language proficiency and so on.Therefore,the present study is intended to answer the following three questions:1)What's the relationship between ambiguity tolerance and English learning achievements of senior high school students?2)In what aspects does ambiguity tolerance differ in gender?3)In what aspects does ambiguity tolerance differ in English proficiency?In the present study,180 students of grade 3 from one senior high school in Yichang city in Hubei province were taken as research subjects.The data were collected through one scale,two English learning achievement tests,one English proficiency test and an interview.The scale was Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale.Two English learning achievement tests were two final English tests the students have taken before.2017 College Entrance Examination English Test Paper was taken as the English proficiency test paper.The interview was done in the format of the semi-structured interview.Based on the above research,the author has come to the following conclusions:1)Senior high school students' ambiguity tolerance positively correlates with their English learning achievements.2)Female and male students have the same output ambiguity tolerance,but the input ambiguity tolerance of female students is significantly higher than that of male students.More specifically speaking,female students show higher ambiguity tolerance than male students in reading English materials that take time to figure out completely,in guessing the meaning of reading materials,in listening and vocabulary.Factors resulting in the differences are the personality types,cognitive styles and ego boundaries;3)Students of high English proficiency show higher ambiguity tolerance in both input and output than those of low English proficiency.In detail,students of high English proficiency are far more tolerant of ambiguity than those of low English proficiency in reading English materials that take time to figure out completely,in guessing the meaning of reading English materials,in expressing their thoughts orally,in writing to say exactly what they want,in listening,grammar use,vocabulary and translation.The factors contributing to the differences are learning styles and learning strategies.Based on the above conclusions,some pedagogical implications are given to senior high school teachers.Teachers should arouse students'awareness of ambiguity tolerance,and try to improve their ambiguity tolerance.What's more,teachers should encourage male and female students to learn from each other's strengths to make up for their own weaknesses,and students of low English proficiency should be encouraged to learn learning strategies from students of high English proficiency.