A Study Of Secondary Vocational School Students' English Learning Habits

English is a compulsory basic course for students in secondary vocational schools.With the rapid development of the economy and the society,talents with workplace English skills need to be trained to meet industries and enterprises' changing requirements on job positions.Meanwhile,secondary vocational school students in Guangdong can have further studies in vocational colleges and universities through entrance exams of basic courses and professional skill tests.As a necessary condition for further studies,learning English is of great importance.Good English learning habits are the foundation for the course learning and they can also shape students' healthy personality and benefit them for life.The present research aims to explore the real situation of English learning habits of secondary vocational school students and put forward some workable suggestions to cultivate students' English learning habits.The research questions are as follows:(1)What is the overall situation of English learning habits of secondary vocational school students like?(2)What are the similarities and differences between English learning habits of boys and girls among secondary vocational school students?(3)What are the similarities and differences between English learning habits of the students from science majors and liberal arts majors?(4)What are the similarities and differences between English learning habits of students who have the intention to further their studies in colleges and those who want to get a job right after graduation?In the present research,807 valid copies of questionnaire were collected from students in the formal questionnaire survey.Interviews with some students and teachers and classroom observation were also conducted to know more specific information.According to the data from the three kinds of methods,information was analyzed on the four dimensions of pre-class basic habits,in-class basic habits,after-class basic habits and understanding and reflection on learning habits.The findings are as follows:(1)The overall situation of English learning habits of secondary vocational school students is not satisfactory.The in-class basic habits are of medium level,however the other three categories are of low level,especially the pre-class basic habits.The students pay more attention to their behaviors and habits in the classroom learning activities,but for the time outside the classroom which is without teachers' supervision,their habits are of low level.The students' English learning habits need to be cultivated and improved.(2)The girl students' English learning habits are better than the boy students' with significant difference.The gap between these two groups is the biggest in terms of their after-class basic habits.(3)The liberal arts major students' habits are better than those of the science major students with significant difference.The gap between these two groups is the biggest in terms of their after-class basic habits.(4)The habits of the students with intention to have further study in colleges are better than the habits of the students with intention to work after graduation,also with significant difference.The gap between these two groups is the biggest in terms of their in-class basic habits.The means of all the four dimensions of habits of students with intention to look for a job after graduation are the lowest among all the analysis groups.The means of habits of students with intention to study in colleges are not higher than those of girls and liberal arts students.These two groups of students with different intentions both need to develop better English learning habits to promote their workplace English skills or their academic performance.According to the above findings,some suggestions are put forward to English teachers and students for cultivating and improving English learning habits,including optimizing the teaching contents for the needs of different students,cultivating students' reading habits and habits of expressing and thinking in English,strengthening the guidance and supervision after class,paying more attention to pre-class habits,developing the habits of learning English from the daily life and learning some skills to improve habits.There are still some limitations in the present research,such as the design of the questionnaire,the scope of the survey,the quality of the survey,and the research content.Therefore,some suggestions for improvement are put forward for similar researches in the future.More perspectives and angles can be focused on to enrich the connotations of English learning habits of secondary vocational school students.The wording and the sequence of the statements in the questionnaire can be improved.Some provincial teaching alliances and some teaching and researching institutions in Guangdong can be of good help in terms of expanding the scope of similar investigations.The sampling methods and ways of classroom observation can also be improved.Attention can be paid to the correlation between students' performance and their English learning habits.Meanwhile,it is also suggested to focus on the changes in English learning habits of secondary vocational school students in recent years under the influence of the current recruitment policies of higher vocational colleges towards secondary vocational school students in Guangdong Province.