An Investigation On English Learning Burnout Of Senior High School Students In Rural Areas

The concept of “student burnout” was first proposed by Pines and Kafry in 1981. It refers to burnout of college students in the learning process. The study of learning burnout is still in developing stage, mainly from foreign and the Taiwan region scholars. Besides, the research objects are more focus on college students. However, situation is quite different between China’s mainland and the developed countries（regions）. In developed countries（regions）, senior high school students are more relax and less stressful than that of college students for a scientific education system. While in China, education resource are limited, and Chinese senior high school students have a heavier academic load and higher academic pressure for a satisfying result in the National Matriculation Test than that of college students. As a result, the situation of senior high school students’ learning burnout is not optimistic.Senior high school is not only a critical period to learn knowledge, but also the best time to develop students’ physical and mental health. Therefore, senior high school students should be taken more attention to avoid adverse impact on their future development. Among all the studies of learning burnout, researches on English learning burnout of rural senior high school are quite a few. In addition, most of the selected samples are from public schools. Private schools as an important part, usually has not been taken into account. This investigation aims to explore the current situation of rural senior high school students’ ELB through a survey of two rural schools and put forward targeted suggestions for individual students to tackle with learning burnout. To help students master positive and reasonable coping strategies and to reduce learning pressure, an appropriate educational management way will be adopted. Eventually it can reach the goal of reducing the students’ learning burnout, and promoting students’ physical and mental health.The theoretical basis of this study mainly rely on the three-dimensional Maslach burnout theory, Krashen’s affective filter theory, acquisition and learning hypothesis and Weiner’s attribution theory. The author precedes a survey whose objects are 260 students randomly picked from two rural senior high schools in Wannian county of Jiangxi province. The questionnaire is divided into the following four dimensions: emotion exhaustion, low self-efficacy, distance from teachers and inappropriate behavior. The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the current situation of rural senior high school students’ ELB and its influencing factors. More precisely, some students will be interviewed. The results indicate that the rural senior high school students’ ELB is medium high in general. The low self-efficacy gets the highest scores, followed by emotional exhaustion, then the inappropriate behavior and distance from teacher. Gender, grade, self-assessed achievement and school type, cadre are the factors which can influence English learning burnout. Based on the research findings, the author attempt to put forward some coping strategies for teachers and students to relieve and reduce rural senior high school students’ ELB.