The Researches On Gender Differences And Teaching Strategies For High School Students' English Learning

It is an objective reality that there exist differences between male and female students in senior high school in English learning. However, this reality has not received adequate attention from the school, the teachers and the students' parents, nor have there been adequate explorations in theory and practice. The present thesis, therefore, seeks to tackle the various innate, internal and external differences between male and female students in physiology, psychology, educational environment and actual learning conditions, aiming to uncover the root causes of the differences, the strategies for gender-based teaching and the inherent implications of the concept of gender-based teaching.A fundamental argument of this thesis is: There do exist differences between male and female students, and these differences merit unconditional respect and flexible, appropriate exploitation on the part of all educators, including parents, so as to maximize the efficiency of English teaching in senior high school.Physiologically, the differences between male and female students are exhibited in the hereditary features of chromosomes, the specialized development of lateral functions of the brain, the hormones of sexual glands, and the rate of physiological development, etc. These differences are innate, objective, and usually unchangeable. They should be well understood by educators who are to treat male and female students differentially. On the one hand, inferior male students call for more understanding and encouragement. On . the other hand, higher demands should be set on superior female students so as to promote their development.Psychologically, certain differences exist between male and female students in their individual psychological tendencies and the manifestation and attribution of their individual psychological traits. In terms of motivation, female students are more internally motivated, while male students are more externally motivated. In terms of interest, female students as a whole are more stable and varied, while male students excel in efficacy and intensity. In terms of belief, female students outperform their male counterparts, but male students have more self-identification and self-confidence than female students. In terms of temperament and character, female students are more introverted and exhibit more composure, while male students are more extroverted, independent andimpetuous. When it comes to English learning, what affects male and female students most is their intellectual differences, i.e. their differences in the type of intelligence and the cognitive style. Research shows that a series of differences exists between male and female students in the mode of conscious memory, the factorial features of their thinking, and their cognitive style. To cope with these differences, educators must aim at the psychological and sexual traits of male and female students, and ensure the simultaneous advancement of male and female students by taking appropriate measures, such as giving full play to the advantages of the angle, mode, mechanism and atmosphere of educational management and teaching methods, assigning varied tasks, and widening educational paths.In terms of social influence, male and female students exhibit a series of differences in the concept of sex role, public behavior and self-awareness of gender due to such factors as social division of labor, the family's expectations of how boys and girls should develop, and the personal sexual traits of boys and girls, which will in turn exert various influences on English learning. In terms of educational factors, the causes of the differences between male and female students in English learning include the teacher's affective attitude, teaching methods and developmental trends. Faced with the positive and negative influences arising from these multiple differences, the school should enhance its teaching quality through more propaganda and a more flexible curriculum, the teacher should enhance his teaching quality through improving his methods of fostering talent and teaching lessons, and the parents should change their traditional concepts and optimize their management so as to earnestly guarantee their children's English learning.In terms of actual learning conditions, differences exist between male and female students in their learning attitudes, habits, strategies and interlanguage. Again, these differences will affect male and female students in their English learning. The teacher should treat male and female students differently according to their respective characteristics, laying more emphasis on enhancing the students' awareness and initiative of English learning, passing on learning strategies to the students, standardizing the students' learning behavior, guiding the students towards a correct understanding of how to improve their Englishlearning, or working hard to promote the emotional exchanges between the teacher and students.Both foreign and Chinese researchers have attempted to explain the differences between male and female students by means of theories of psychoanalysis, theories of cognitive development, theories of gender schemata, sociological theories, and socio-cognitive theories. They have offered us quite a few justifiable findings and invaluable implications for our study of the differences between male and female students in high school English learning. Guided by the concepts of dialectical materialism, we must conform to the principle of seeking truth from facts, fully recognize the differences between male and female students in English learning, explore the strategies and laws for gender-based English teaching, and constantly enrich and perfect the content of gender-based teaching.