A Study On Perceptual Learning Styles Of Senior High School Students

In recent decades, the focus of the research of foreign language acquisition has gradually been shifted from the teaching methodology to individual differences of learners, which has attracted more and more researchers'attention. Learner's individual difference is a very important factor that has an impact on classroom teaching, and L2 learners'learning style is one of the key variables that make difference in the process and product of L2 learning. Therefore, learning styles have aroused great interest among language researchers.There has been fruitful empirical research of learning styles in the West, but research in this area in China has mainly been restricted to the theoretical discussion and the introduction of theories and findings in the Western countries. There are relatively few empirical studies to investigate the learning styles of Chinese EFL students. Furthermore, sparse empirical studies have been conducted to explore the learning styles of middle school students.This thesis aims to examine the overall perceptual learning styles of high school students and explore the links between learning styles and some variables, namely, language proficiency, gender, and major. In this study, Reid's (2002) Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire was employed, and the questionnaires were administered to 200 students of Senior 2 in Fuzhou No 1. middle school, Jiangxi Province. After the relevant data was obtained, I adopted descriptive analysis and T-test for the statistical analysis.The findings of the research indicate that the subjects prefer tactile learning most and the visual style least. In general, students express a minor learning style preference for all the modes. Also, there is significant difference in the tactile learning style between male and female students. What's more, it is found that the kinesthetic learning style correlates positively with foreign language proficiency. Art students prefer auditory and group learning more significantly than science students. Based on the results, some implications for foreign language teaching in middle school were provided. First of all, teachers should identify their students'learning style and respect the learners'different preferences. And secondly, teachers need create teacher-student style matching and try to stretch students learning styles. Thirdly, teachers should balance instructional methods, that is, adopt them flexibly to serve for students with various learning styles. Lastly, teachers should employ computer-assisted instruction which stimulates different senses of learners so that students can learn foreign language more efficiently.