An Investigation Into Middle School Students' Reflective Learning In English Subject

Reflective learning not only helps to enhance learners' self-cognition and monitoring their learning process,but also promotes the development of learners'creativity,autonomous learning ability and other aspects.Therefore,learners should gradually develop their reflective learning ability and become active reflective learners.However,at present,reflective learning has received little attention as the focus of attention has been awarded to teachers' reflective teaching.In addition,most domestic studies on reflective learning are theoretical research,mainly summarizing and introducing relevant viewpoints,theories and models of reflective learning.The very limited empirical studies focus on college students and senior high school students,ignoring junior high school students whose reflective learning ability can be developed to maturity.To fill the research gap,this study aimed to investigate the status quo of middle school students' reflective learning in English subject and the possible influencing factors.This study centered on the following two main research questions:(1)What is the general level of their reflective learning in English subject?What are the features of their reflective learning?(2)What are the facilitating and hindering factors in their reflective learning in English subject?How do these factors work?This study investigated 146 middle school students in grade two as research participants in the middle school attached to Huazhong University of Science and Technology.A combination of questionnaire survey and one-to-one semi-structured interviews was used to collect research data.The main findings were summarized as follows:1.Generally speaking,middle school students' reflective learning in English subject was slightly above the medium level.Students were good at self-knowledge,relating experience to knowledge and self-reflection on English learning process,but their self-regulation of English learning was at a relatively low level and still needed to be improved.2.Several factors positively influenced middle school students' reflective learning in English subject.Some were concerned with external stimulus such as students'progress in English exams as well as teachers' encouragement and requirements for reflective learning in English subject,while others were related to students' own characteristics such as students' interests in English,their problem-solving awareness and their desire to improve English.3.Some factors negatively influenced middle school students' reflective learning in English subject.In general,the external factors were mainly concerned with the overloaded learning burdens caused by a large number of learning tasks and assignments,while the internal ones were mainly about the passive learning attitudes resulting from students' laziness,lack of learning confidence,fruitless reflection and their terrible learning state.Based on the above findings,this study puts forward some suggestions for students,teachers and researchers to promote middle school students' reflective learning in English subject.