A Study On Higher-grade Students' English Learning Self-efficacy In A Primary School

With the development of Chinese economy,people's opinion on education is changing.Primary school English has received more and more attention.In order to improve the teaching effect,researchers find that in addition to teaching environment,teaching methods and some other external factors,students' internal factors,such as self-efficacy,also play an important role in improving the teaching effect.The concept of self-efficacy was first put forward by Bandura,a famous American psychologist,in1977.He regarded self-efficacy as an individual's belief in the abilities to execute a specific tasks at a specific level.This study will adopt the theory of self-efficacy into the specific field of English learning and define English learning self-efficacy as learners' subjective judgment on their abilities in accomplishing English learning tasks.It is made up of two dimensions including the English learning ability self-efficacy and the English learning behavior self-efficacy.The English learning ability self-efficacy refers to the subjective judgment on individuals' English learning ability.The English learning behavior self-efficacy refers to the learners' judgment on whether the behavior can accomplish English learning tasks.According to the existing studies at home and abroad,it is found that English learning self-efficacy influences students' academic performance an achievements no matter in direct or indirect ways and is worthy of in-depth study.However,most ofrecent studies focus on the undergraduates,vocational and middle school students,studies on primary school students is deficient.Thus,this paper aims to study English learning self-efficacy of higher-grade students in primary school from the following three aspects: Firstly,what is the current situation of higher-grade students' English learning self-efficacy in primary school? Secondly,are there genders differences on higher-grade students' English learning self-efficacy in primary school? Thirdly,what are the influence factors of primary school high-grade students' English learning self-efficacy and how much do they influence English learning self-efficacy?In order to find answers to these three research questions,the author adopts two questionnaires and an interview on 259 students from Longquanyi Honghe Primary School in Chengdu.Based on the effectiveness of the questionnaires,224 students' answers are identified as valid.The main findings are: 1)English learning self-efficacy of higher-grade students,no matter in general or in the two dimensions of ability and behavior,is at the medium level.The self-efficacy in ability is a bit higher than that in behavior.2)There is no significant gender differences in general and ability self-efficacy for primary school higher-grade students.But high-grader girls' English learning behavior self-efficacy is a bit higher than that of boys'.3)As for the influence factors,it is found that the external factors exert more than internal factors for higher-grade students.The first five influence factors are vicarious experience,social approval,parents' encouragement,teacher's evaluation and extracurricular activities.All of them are external.The study finds that other five factors,learning strategies,physical and mental states,goal setting and mastery experience are all internal while they rank in the bottom five and their effects on self-efficacy decreased in order.Finally,the author puts forward some pedagogic suggestions on promoting the English learning self-efficacy of high-grader from the perspective of teachers,students and parents.