An Empirical Study On Senior Students’ Reflective Learning Of English Grammar

Reflection, being the process of re-inspection of one’s own cogitation is an essential part of autonomous learning. Reflection is not only an indispensable part of autonomous learning ability but also an important way of improving it. According to Constructivism, learning is not a passive process of reception, which requires students’ constructive competence, reflection, generalization as well as abstraction. The New Curriculum Reform advocates the student-centered learning, which is not only an obvious display of the constructivist theory, but also the necessary desire for quality-oriented English teaching. Thus, to guarantee the role of students, the combination between English learning and reflective learning is necessary.Reflection as a way of fostering learners’ learning has been widely studied in the educational field. In the field of English as a foreign language, there are some general studies on reflection, but most of them are from foreign researchers. The domestic research on it, especially the empirical study on Chinese students, has been inadequate.Grammar learning plays a very important part in senior students’ English learning. Traditionally, grammar teaching in China was viewed as teacher-centered. Teachers who adopt this definition teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling students on them. This approach to grammar teaching results in bored, disaffected teaching. Although the researches to English grammar teaching methodologies are rich, most of them focus on teachers’ teaching activities not the students’ learning. The research on the grammar teachings from the perspective of the promoting of the students’ reflective learning of English grammar is the original part of the present study.The present study was an empirical research which focused on a teaching practice aiming at promoting senior students’ reflective competence in English grammar learning and the improvement of their overall English proficiency through efficient strategies instruction.Two reflective activities:writing reflective journal and doing study report were included, to examine whether the instruction was effective in developing senior students’ reflective competence in English learning. The participants involved in this study were120senior3students from He Ping Middle School. Carried out in September,2012, the whole research covered12weeks. Three research questions were put forward to guide the investigation:(1) Do significant differences exist in students’ reflective competence before and after the research?(2) What are the effects of reflective learning on students’ grammar learning and their overall achievements in English examinations?(3)What’s the students’attitude toward reflective grammar learning and what difficulties they may encounter in their reflective learning?The outcome of the analysis results shows that(1) The students gave a positive attitude towards reflective learning, the12-week reflective learning instruction did positively affect the students’ reflective learning.(2) Students’ performances in English examinations correlate with students’ reflective competence, that is to say, the enhancement of students’ reflective learning competence will definitely lead to students’ academic success in English. Therefore, reflective learning can be applied to English learning in senior middle schools.(3)The reflective journal and study report applied during the research are effective ways to raise students’ reflective awareness and enthusiasm.(4) The student may meet some difficulties in concrete learning.