A Study On Senior High School Students' Learned Helplessness In English Learning

Learned Helplessness refers to the negative and special psychological state of an organism in terms of emotion,cognition and behavior after experiencing some kind of learning.According to Seligman's theory,the sense of Learned Helplessness is only directed at a specific situation,which reflects the individual's belief that he does not feel capable in this specific field.In the group of English learners,if person has a good desire to learn English and devotes a lot of learning energy,but has not achieved the desired learning effect,this situation can lead to negative psychological experiences such as anxiety and depression.If these negative psychologies are not corrected in time,it will gradually form a negative cognitive style,leading to "acquisition helplessness" in English learning.Senior high school students are in an important period of physical and mental development,and English learning is generally difficult.Therefore,it is of great significance to understand the situation of senior high school students' Learned Helplessness in English learning.On the basis of literature analysis,a questionnaire on English Learned Helplessness was distributed to 154 participants in a senior high school.Through investigation and research,the general characteristics of senior high school students' Learned Helplessness in English learning are obtained,the correlation between Learned Helplessness and students' English performance and the differences among Learned Helplessness and family background and gender are discussed.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:1)Senior high school students' Learned Helplessness in English learning is in a relatively low level on the whole,and students' tendency of helplessness is not obvious.The four dimensions of Learned Helplessness from high to low are emotional helplessness,motive helplessness,behavioral helplessness and cognitive helplessness.2)There is a negative correlation between senior high school students' Learned Helplessness and English achievement in English learning.In other words,the better the students' English performance are,the lower Learned Helplessness they hold in English learning or the contrary.3)There are significant differences in Learned Helplessness between studentsfrom towns and cities.The differences are as follows: students from villages and towns have more obvious sense of learned helplessness than students from cities.In the terms of gender,boys score slightly higher than girls in Learned Helplessness,but there is no significant difference in Learned Helplessness in English learning.Based on these conclusions,there are some pedagogical implications for senior high school teachers' English teaching.Teachers should fully mobilize students' learning enthusiasm in teaching and avoid the formation of helplessness.Teachers should not only help students learn English well,but also care about their mental health.