Research On English Learning Styles Preferences Of Agricultural College Students

Among the factors that affect students' EFL performance, learning style(LS)is regarded as one of the most important, which has demanded attention in education in many years. The studies conducted abroad have achieved fruitful results. Oriented by the research in the west, there has been increasing interest among Chinese researchers in the field of Chinese learners' LSs. But for the pressure of student numbers and scarcity of literature resources, studies in China lag far behind those in the west and much is limited to such specific areas as Field Independence, Field Dependence, and Perceptual Learning Styles. Almost all the researches conducted in China so far have taken English majors as their subjects. Knowledge on Chinese non-English majors(NEMs) is rare, let alone Agricultural College Students(ACSs). The author of this paper decided to take ACSs as the subjects and carry out an extensive research in this area in the Chinese context, in the hope that the knowledge on ACSs' learning style preferences(LSPs) will help Chinese English teachers develop appropriate teaching methods to meet and develop these students' learning potentials.In this study, self-report questionnaire and interviews were adopted as the main instruments to investigate 234 ACSs from Rongchang Campus, Southwest University. And it falls into three parts:Part one is the basic research of the theory, which is the foundation of this study. It mainly includes the recall of the study on learning style(LS) and learning strategy, and according to this, the present situation about the study abroad and at home was introduced and analyzed. By this way the relationship between learning style, teaching style and learning strategy has been sought.Part two is mainly about the present situation investigation and analysis of different kinds of agricultural college students' learning style. This part provides powerful supports to the following study of learning strategy and to the suggestions for English teachers.Part three is about the study of learning strategy and the suggestions for English teachers.