A Survey Of Students’ Engagement In English Classroom Of Demonstrated Senior High Schools In Guilin

With the increasing importance of students’ subjective status,students’ classroom engagement has been attached more and more attention to by scholars at home and abroad.Chinese scholars have done lots of researches about students’ engagement,but the existing researches concerning senior high schools are quite few,especially in economically undeveloped areas.This study aims at improving the degree of engagement in English classroom so that the efficiency of English teaching can be greatly improved.This study was carried out through the application of questionnaire and classroom observation.The questionnaire adopted in this study referred to the questionnaire of Professor Kong Qiping of East China Normal University,which consists of three dimensions: behavioral engagement,cognitive engagement and emotional engagement.The subjects of this study were 317 students of senior two.They are from three demonstrated senior high schools: Lingui Middle School,Longsheng Middle School and Lingchuan Middle School.Two classes were randomly chosen from each school and based on the scores of their final exam in the second semester in the first year,they were divided into two different language proficiency groups: high score group and low score group.Three research questions to be explored are as follows:(1)What is the overall situation of senior high school students’ engagement in English classroom?(2)Are there any differences in English classroom engagement in terms of gender and language proficiency?(3)What are the factors influencing students’ engagement in English classroom?The results of the study indicate that most of the subjects basically can actively participate in their English classroom learning,and their attitude towards classroom engagement is positive.There are no significant differences between female and male students on the whole except being attentive taking lessons and dependency strategy.Compared with male students,females are more attentive and dependent in their English classroom learning.As for the differences between high score group and low score group students,their differences are at a significant level.Students with higher English level have a more positive attitude towards classroom engagement,outperforming those with lower English level.In terms of factors affecting students’ English classroom engagement,eleven main causes are found in this study.The five causes of student’s level are students’ character,language proficiency,degree of interest,confidence as well as their preparation before class;the five causes of teacher’s level are teachers’ personality charisma,teachers’ language proficiency,teaching skills,teaching methods and class design;one major factor of environmental level is students’ subjective environment like teacher-student relationship.According to the results,the author puts forward some suggestions from the following three aspects: teachers,students and schools.It is suggested that teachers should spare no efforts to enhance students’ consciousness of engagement,improve students’ learning interest and motivation.What’s more,teachers need to continuously perfect their teaching skills and teaching methods.And it is of great significance for teachers to establish a harmonious teacher-student relationship.For students,they should be more confident in themselves and try to participate in classroom activities more actively.As for the schools,it is proposed that more chances for teachers to keep learning should be offered and a harmonious and academic environment for students is supposed to be created.