A Study On The Relationship Between Vocational College Students' English Self-concept And Their English Learning Achievements

The current study examined the relationship between vocational college students'English self-concept and their English learning achievements, and the effects of gender and students'source (from the countryside or from the city and town) on vocational college students'English self-concept and their English learning achievements respectively.As far as English learning achievements are concerned, the present study focuses on listening achievement, vocabulary and structure achievement, reading achievement and the achievement of Matriculation English examination. Although researchers have conducted numerous studies on the relationship between English self-concept and English language learning, little research has been done to investigate the relationship between vocational college students'English self-concept and their English learning achievements. Thus we can not get a thorough picture of learners'affective characteristics in the foreign language learning process as well as its effects on English achievements.The present study surveyed 59 subjects'self-appraisal and self-perception of their foreign language learning by questionnaires. The subjects of the study are freshmen majoring in Logistics from the Department of Economic Management of Jiangxi Blue Sky University. Pearson correlation analysis and Independent Samples Test were conducted to analyze the related data by the statistical software SPSS13.0. Statistical analysis of the collected data yields the following findings: Firstly, vocational college students'English general self-concept is significantly correlated with their listening self-concept, speaking self-concept, reading self-concept, writing self-concept, vocabulary self-concept and grammar self-concept. Among them, the largest correlation existed between vocational college students'vocabulary self-concept and their English general self-concept.Secondly, vocational college students'English general self-concept is significantly correlated with their global English learning achievements. In other words, vocational college students with positive English self-concept tend to get higher global English learning achievements and vice versa, and vocational college students with negative English self-concept tend to get lower global English achievements and vice versa. With regard to the specific facets, vocational college students'listening achievement and their listening self-concept are highly correlated with each other and interacted mutually, and the same is true with the relationship between vocational college students'grammar self-concept and their English grammar level.Thirdly, there exists significant gender difference in vocational college students'English listening self-concept, that is to say, females'English listening self-concept was significantly higher than that of males. Nevertheless, gender had no significant effects on the vocational college students'general English self-concept and other specific dimensions of English self-concept as well as their English learning achievements.Fourthly, there is no significant effects of students'source (from the countryside or from the city and town) on vocational college students'English self-concept (including general and specific facets) and their English learning achievements.