A Research On The Correlation Between Learner's Beliefs And English Classroom Behaviors Of Senior High School Students

Since the 1970s, with the further development of foreign language teaching, the focus of foreign language teaching has shifted from teachers to students. Learners' individual difference has become a focus. As an important individual variable in language learning, learner's beliefs have influenced the learning process and learning outcomes. As classroom is the main place for students to learn a foreign language in China, students' classroom behaviors intensively reflect their learning attitudes, learning orientation, learning strategies and so on, which could influence the effects of language learning. Researches on learner's beliefs or English classroom behaviors have conducted a lot in China, but there are few studies about the relationship between them, fewer on senior high school students at home. In view of this, the present research explores the correlation between learner's beliefs and English classroom behaviors of senior high school students, hoping to offer some useful implications to English teaching and learning in senior high schools.The present research uses questionnaires survey as the research instruments, and 240 students in Pingle Senior High School are chosen to participate in this investigation. The Senior High School Students'Beliefs about English Learning Questionnaire is based on Horwitz's (1987) Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory. There are five dimensions: difficulty of language learning, foreign language aptitude, nature of language learning, learning and communication strategies, motivations and expectations. The Senior High School Students' English Classroom Behaviors Questionnaire employs Elisabeth Hayes' (1992) Classroom Behaviors Questionnaire with minor change. It includes seven components:verbal participation, learning orientation, dominating others, support-seeking, self-disclosure, self-assurance and sociability.This paper intends to address the three questions:(1) What is the overall situation of senior high school students' beliefs about English learning? (2) What is the overall situation of senior high school students'English classroom behaviors? (3) Is there any correlation between learner's beliefs and English classroom behaviors of senior high school students? If yes, how are they related with each other?With the data analysis by SPSS 20.0, the research results of this study are shown as follows:(1) Senior high school students'beliefs about language learning stay at a medium level. Specifically speaking, the students'motivations and expectations rank the top, followed by the nature of language learning, learning and communication strategies, foreign language aptitude, and then the difficulty of language learning comes in last. (2) Senior high school students' English classroom behaviors are at a medium level. Of the seven dimensions, the students' support-seeking is the highest, while sociability, learning orientation, self-disclosure, self-assurance and verbal participation come next. Dominating others ranks the lowest. (3) Senior high school students'beliefs about language learning are statistically correlated with six dimensions of English classroom behaviors. There are moderate correlation between learner's beliefs and learning orientation, support-seeking, and a relative low correlation between learner's beliefs and sociability, verbal participation, self-assurance, self-disclosure. There is no correlation between learner's beliefs and dominating others.Based on the findings, this paper puts forwards some pedagogical implications for teachers of senior high schools:(1) Teachers should cultivate students' beliefs about English learning; (2) Teachers should activate students' classroom involvements; (3) Teachers should improve students'self-efficacy. Meanwhile, some suggestions for senior high school students are as follows:(1) Students are supposed to dare to question others; (2) Students are supposed to master cooperative learning.