A Study On The Correlation Between Personality Traits And Communication Strategies Of Chinese EFL Students In Secondary Vocational Schools

This study mainly is focused on exploring the correlation between secondary vocational school students' personality traits and their use of Communication Strategies(CSs).In this study,380 students from three different majors in Zhao Qing Technician Institute were selected.They were requested to conduct an interview and complete two questionnaires.One is the revised version of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory(NEO-FFI),proposed by Costa and McCrae in 2004.And the other is the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory(OCSI),proposed by Nakatani in 2006.The results of classroom observation,interview and data analysis are concluded as(1)The main personality traits of secondary vocational school students are Agreeableness,Conscientiousness and Extroversion.There is no significant difference in personality traits between male and female students.There are more neurotic students majoring in Preschool Education than those Accounting and Logistics.(2)The main uses of CSs of the students are “Message reduction and alteration strategies”,“Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies” and “Social affective strategies”.Female students prefer to use “Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies” more often than male students.Also,students majoring in Accounting prefer to use “Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies” and “Message reduction and alteration strategies”,while the students majoring in Preschool Education prefer to use “Nonverbal strategies while speaking strategies”.(3)The main personality traits that affect secondary vocational school students' choices of CSs are Agreeableness,Conscientiousness and Openness.The female students with the personality traits of Openness like to use various CSs,especially those whose major is Preschool Education.At the end of this thesis,some suggestions will be put forward,with the hope of improving secondary vocational English education.