A Survey On Students' English Perceptual Learning Style In Senior High School

In recent years,with the proposal of the quality-oriented education,student-centered view has been paid more and more attention.As an important affecting factor of individual learning,learning style is listed in the New Curriculum Standard,which requires students and teachers to pay attention to and cultivate it.In English learning,the study of perceptual learning style has gradually become an important topic.Scholars at home and abroad have also made some researches on it,whose research subjects mostly focused on college students and vocational students,and they tend to study the relationships between learning styles and learning strategies.For perceptual learning styles of senior high school students,especially English subject,has began to be studied from different aspect gradually.English learning is a practical process of language input and output which includes multiple perceptions such as listening,speaking,reading and writing.Therefore,the study of perceptual learning style is of great significance to improve students' learning efficiency and teachers' teaching methods.In order to realize the general tendency of senior students' perceptual learning style better,this thesis uses the theory of humanism and Perceptual learning style as the theoretical basis,then combines the questionnaire of Reid(1987)and Oxford(1993)and considers the characteristics of Chinese students,then classifies perceptual learning styles into five types: visual,auditory,hands-on,group and individual,the author chooses 261 students of Senior 1 and Senior 3 in Mudanjiang Administrative Bureau High School as the research subject to finish the questionnaire.Meanwhile,six English teachers and eight students from the different class of arts and science in Senior 1 and Senior 3 are interviewed respectively,which aims to find the general tendency of students' perceptual learning style through the following four questions:(1)How are perceptual learning styles of senior high school students distributed and what are their characteristics?(2)In what ways are perceptual learning styles of senior high school students related to grades,gender and majors?(3)In what ways are perceptual learning styles of senior high school students correlated to their English achievements?Through using SPSS 17.0,the writer gets the following conclusions:(1)Students' English perceptual learning styles are characterized by diversified styles.Most students are not limited to one type of perceptual learning style.Specifically,the main perceptual learning styles are individual and visual,while group,auditory and hands-on styles are the minor learning styles.(2)In terms of grades,for Senior 1 students,the perceptual learning style of them is more diversified than that of Senior 3 students,with the grade rising,the learning style of Senior 3 students is generally stable.Senior 3 students have the most significant preferences for individual style and have a little more stronger visual preferences than Senior 1 students;while compared with Senior 3,Senior 1 students prefer group work,but auditory and hands-on styles are both appeared lower in Senior 1 and 3 students as minor learning styles;In terms of gender differences,female students prefer visual style than male,while the other four perceptual styles have no obvious differences in gender;In terms of students' major,science students prefer hands-on and group work to arts students,but arts students have higher preferences for vision than science students.(3)In terms of students' English achievements,high achievers prefer hands-on style to low achievers,while low achievers prefer auditory style to high achievers.Other learning styles have no significant differences between high achievers and low achievers.From the above research results,this thesis puts forward corresponding suggestions for students and teachers.For students,discovering and understanding their own perceptual learning styles can cultivate their own learning styles and take their own advantages to enhance their learning efficiency and learning interests.For English teachers,it is beneficial to realize students' learning styles and improve the teaching efficiency as well as teaching quality by using a variety of teaching strategies to meet different needs of students.