Application Of Attribution Theorry And Metacognitive Strategies In English Teaching

In modern English teaching, there is a great shift of focus from how teachers teach to how students learn, that is to say, the educational research has become learner-centred. Both the educators and psychologists have seen that the ultimate goal of education is to help students to become independent, autonomous and effective learners. Meanwhile, English learners are trying all the way to find the most effective method to achieve more successes in English learning. However, learning is not a mechanical stimulus-response process; rather, learning is a creative construction and learners can intervene their learning process conscious (Ellis,1994). There are many factors that can influence one's English learning, among which some of the causes we can handle and some can not. The thesis selects two causes that can influence learners'outcomes from the controllable causes which learners can handle, i.e. attribution and metacognitive strategy.People tend to attribute their perceived successes and failures in academic and other achievement situations to some certain reasons, and this process is called attribution. Weiner believed that ability, effort, luck and the task difficulty were four major factors in explaining successes and failures in learning and he applied attribution theory into educational field directly. In addition, second language studies show that attribution is an important factor influencing second language acquisition, and it can have positive or negative influences on the learners'motive and even spoil the learning results. However, learning is a complicated process and attribution theory cannot affect the outcome of the learners alone. Most recently, researchers have noticed that one group of learning strategies, i.e. metacognitive strategies are of specific importance. It is regarded as "essential for successful learning", and it can help learners learn more effectively. According to Johnson K. (Johnson,1999), attribution is generally regarded as one of major affective variables which can be connected to metacognitive strategies. Anyhow, there exists a shortage of empirical studies on how attribution beliefs for success and failure can affect the choice and use of metacognitive strategies.For these reasons mentioned above, the current study utilized two questionnaires to investigate the present English learning situations of 226 non-English majors from Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. It aims to find out the differences between successful and unsuccessful university students in terms of using attribution belief for success and failure and metacognitive strategies, and how these two factors will affect the learners'learning outcomes. At last, the thesis tried to find out how attribution beliefs for success and failure may have an effect on the choice and use of metacognitive strategies, and fill in the gap in this area.