A Research On Junior Middle School Students’ English Learning Styles

The research on learners’ individual differences is one of the most important research fields in foreign language teaching. The researches have shown that foreign language learners’ learning styles are the important factors influencing foreign language learning proficiency. However, most English teachers have not paid due attention to students’ learning styles yet. Based on the previous researches, the author finds that most of the researches on learning styles remain at the theoretical level.Furthermore, most of those research subjects are college students, and only a few of them are middle school students.The author adopts questionnaire and interview as the research instruments According to the practical requirements of the investigation, the author adds two cognitive styles to Joy Reid’s Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaires.The author investigates the students in Grade Two of a few junior middle schools in Shanghai. The data analyses are processed by using SPSS16.0.The empirical study finds that: 1) Most junior middle school students prefer the visual, the kinesthetic, the group and the reflective learning style. 2) There are some significant differences between girls and boys in terms of the visual, the individual,the impulsive and the reflective learning styles. 3) There are some correlations between the learning styles and English achievements which are reflected in the visual,the individual, the impulsive and the reflective learning styles. 4) There is no significant difference between top students and underachieving students in terms of learning styles. The author has found out the following reasons behind this phenomenon by interviewing some research subjects: students’ lack of awareness of their learning styles; the effect of the mechanical teaching patterns; the effect of parental rearing styles; the effect of school education and the effect of self-identification.On the basis of the empirical findings, the author puts forward the following practical suggestions for both teachers and students: 1) Both teachers and students should raise their awareness of learning styles. 2)Teachers should pay attention to thedifferences between girls and boys in terms of learning styles, and the correlations between students’ learning styles and their English achievements. 3) Teachers should match their teaching styles with their students’ learning styles. 4) Teachers should introduce the negotiation classes into present English classes. The aim of introducing the negotiation classes is to make teachers take students’ learning styles into account when they are designing teaching activities.