Exploring Primary School Students' Self-efficacy And Self-efficacy-building Strategies In English Learning

Students' self-efficacy in English learning is their beliefs in how well they are able to organize and execute the courses of action required to achieve desirable outcomes in learning English.Despite extensive research on students' self-efficacy in English learning,there has been a lack of investigations into primary school students' self-efficacy,or their use of self-efficacy-building strategies in English learning.This paper intends to fill in this gap by exploring the status quo of primary school students' English learning self-efficacy,and the effects of the training of self-efficacy-building strategies.This paper aims to answer the following three research questions:(1)What is the status quo of students' self-efficacy in English learning?(2)Whether(and how)does the implementation of self-efficacy-building strategies increase students' self-efficacy?(3)What are the students' and teachers' attitudes towards self-efficacy and implementation of the self-efficacy-building strategy?In order to answer these questions,a class of 45 fifth-grade students took part in the study,in which they first finished a questionnaire on English learning self-efficacy,took part in the training of English learning self-efficacy-building strategies,and finished a second questionnaire on English learning self-efficacy.One teacher and two students also participated in follow-up interviews.The results show that:(1)As for the status quo of students' self-efficacy in English learning,the English learning self-efficacy of the students in this class is above average;(2)In regard to the effectiveness of the self-efficacy-building strategy in English learning,the self-efficacy-building strategy did improve the students' self-efficacy,but not in a statistically different manner;(3)For the teacher's and students' attitude towards the implementation of the self-efficacy-building strategy,teachers affirmed the rationality of the self-efficacy-building strategy and put forward valuable suggestions.And students with different levels of self-efficacy have different attitudes towards the implementation of self-efficacy-building strategies.This study serves as a basis forfuture implementation of the self-efficacy-building strategy and opens up a new field for the study of students' English learning.