A Study On Gender Differences Of Junior Middle School Students' English Learning Styles And Correlation With Achievement

With the reforming of English teaching as the ESL in our country,the teaching must take account of the learners as individuals and consider the learners' personalities and differences,such as learning styles,because they are the most basic personality traits of learners.Over the recent years,scholars and experts have paid special attention to the learning styles,but most of the research has focused on college students and senior middle school students,there is not much research for junior middle school students.The learning styles of junior middle school students' should also be fully taken into consideration,because they help improve the students' English.The English teaching results in the rural junior middle school are not so satisfactory,the junior middle students not only have poor English foundations,but also appear serious polarization.Also the polarization between boys and girls is very obvious.So the purpose of this thesis is to try to solve these problems from the perspective of learning by investigating and studying the differences of English learning styles between boys and girls,and try to find out the causes of these differences,then take different teaching measures according to these differences.Learning styles are the most basic personality traits of learners,they show up and directly involved through the whole learning procedures,they have direct controlled effect for learning activities.So,this thesis first describes the definitions and types of English learning styles,and makes a simple statement of the differences between boys and girls,then through the questionnaires called Perceptual Learning Style Preference Questionnaire,PLSPQ,designed by Reid and Learning Time Preference Inventory which were designed by Dunns,together with the individual interviews of 14 students,and combining with the tests,the thesis tries to find out the differences of English learning styles between boys and girls and the causes of the differences,then takes different teaching measures to solve the problems.The thesis comes to the conclusion:(1)girls get higher marks than boys do in the English exams,the excellence rate and the pass rate of girls' are also higher than boys',the low marks which below 50 points are all boys;(2)girls' learning styles are more perfect than boys',girls get more scores in visual,auditory and hands-on learning styles,as to individual and cooperative learning styles,both boys and girls get almost the same scores,boys get far more scores in impulsive style than girls,and boys' score in impulsive style is significantly higher than the score of girls',but girls' score in reflective style is much high than that of boys';On the basis of these differences between girls and boys,as well as their advantages and weaknesses in English learning,the thesis provides some useful and targeted teaching measures,such as cultivating boys' reflective learning style by improving their writing abilities;using the advantages of boys' impulsive learning styles to improve their spoken English and make them feel more confident in learning English;improving girls' English steadily and entirely by using their better learning styles;cultivating students' ability of self-study in their preference time and improve their individual learning styles;consummating cooperative learning style to meet the needs of most students,taking the gender differences of learning style between girls' and boys' into consideration and using as many kinds of teaching methods and strategies as possible to improve students' English from all aspects.In the process of English teaching and learning,both teachers and students should improve the understanding of learning styles.Students can first recognize and understand their own learning styles,and then expand and improve their learning styles constantly to learn English more efficiently.Teachers should understand and respect the students' learning styles,especially the different styles between boys and girls,and then organize various teaching activities to meet the needs of both boys and girls.Teachers should also help students make their learning styles more diversifiedand flexible.