A Study Of English Learning Strategies In A Middle School Classroom

Since the middle of 1970's, some foreign applied linguists have started the research of English (as a foreign language or a second language) learning strategies, the applications of which have a certain acceleration to develop the learners' learning ability and improve their learning achievement. In China, the research of English learning strategies began from the beginning of 1980s, but not too many linguists work at this field. All in all, most of the investigations only based on the statistical survey of the undergraduates of Chinese universities and colleges. The researches based on the middle school students began in the recent years, but most of them only remain at the theory study level, not paying great attention to the most middle school students' specific applications in the English language learning strategy. To our relief, some teachers have already noticed the importance of encouraging the middle school students to know about and applicant the learning strategies and improving the middle school students' over-all ability and accomplishment. In the November of 1999, the English Course Standard Teaching and Research Group Under Ministry of Education published "The Presume of the English Course Standard for the Basic Education Stage in China", in which learning strategies (including the affective strategies, the managing and evaluating strategies, the cognitive learning strategies and the communicative learning strategies) are brought out in the overall goal of English teaching and learning. This fully shows that in China the English teaching and learning for the basic stage has begun to put stress on the important influence at the middle school students' English learning so as to develop the students' overall learning ability.Based on this case, I have investigated the middle school students' English learning strategies applications, using the quantitative approach to analyze and discuss the results of the investigation in order to find out their general applications circumstances and the existing issues. These findings and issues can be used for the reference in the future teaching and learning.This study adopted a random sampling investigation. 450 students in five representative middle schools in Luoyang district of Henan province were selected to be the subjects梩he second year students of junior middle school and senior middle school in the No. 1 senior middle school of Luoyang (a main school in Henan province), theNo. 3 senior middle school of Luoyang (a main school in Luoyang city ), the No. 5 junior middle school of Luoyang (a common school), the No. 1 senior middle school of Ruyang county (a mountain-area school) and the No.2 junior middle school of Ruyang county (a town school). In all, there are 450 questionnaires, the response rate is 95 percent, that is, 428 questionnaires are effective. Among these, 196 are from junior middle school students and 232 from senior middle school students; 157 are girl students and 271 are boy students. In all there are 42 items in The Language Learning Strategy Questionnaire, of which 9 for the affective strategy, 11 for the managing and evaluating strategy, 17 for the cognitive strategy and 5 for the communicative strategy. The students responded on a five-point scale. Before statistics and analyzing the data, I have analyzed the internal consistency of the items, the coefficient of the reliability is 0.91, so this investigation is reliable.This thesis mainly consists of four parts. The introduction reviews the Chinese and foreign applied linguists' chief achievements about the English learning strategies and The Syllabus for Middle School English Course points out the English teaching goal?To help the students develop some efficient English learning strategies. So it is necessary for the teachers to study the English learning strategies in middle school. Part one briefly reviews the foreign language learning strategy studies and some famous Chinese and foreign applied linguists' different definitions and classifications of the foreign...