A Study On The Relationship Between Junior Middle School Students’ English Self-concept And Their English Learning Achievements

Affective factors perform a crucial role in English learning.It greatly facilitates or impedes English learning.Self-concept,as one of the particularly significant affective variables,is attracting growing and mounting concerns in the field of English language teaching and learning.Self-concept refers to individual’s self-perception,which is based on the experiences of his surrounding environment or the understanding and evaluation of the experiences.(Shavelson et al.,1976)English self-concept is one’s self-perception and self-evaluation concerning his English learning competence and English academic achievement.However,research into English self-concept on junior middle school students is seldom carried out in China,let alone the correlation study on English self-concept and English achievement of junior middle school students.Thus,it would be quite difficult for teachers to adopt appropriate and effective measures to improve junior middle school students’ English achievement.The present study aims to explore the relationship between junior middle school students’ English self-concept and their English learning achievements with a combination of quantitative analysis(questionnaires and English final examination scores)and qualitative analysis(English learning journals).The 574 subjects come from Shanyin Fourth Middle School,in Shuo Zhou city.It aims to systematically explore the following issues:(1)What is the trend of junior middle school students’ English self-concept from Grade 7 to Grade 9?(2)What is the correlation between junior middle school students’ English self-concept and their English achievements?(3)Does gender have a significant effect on junior middle school students’ English self-concept ?Based on the statistical data analysis and English learning journals analysis,some major findings are clearly presented as follows: First,there is a downward trend in junior middle school students’ English self-concept from Grade 7 to Grade 9.Second,English self-concept significantly correlates with English achievement among junior middle school students.In addition,specific self-concepts interact with English achievement.And the most important,reading self-concept is the enormously powerful predictor for English achievement,and vocabulary self-concept is the second one.Junior middle school students who possessed positive English self-concept tend to achieve higher English learning achievements and vice versa;At last,there is an obvious difference between female and male junior middle school students in their English self-concept.Female junior middle school students’ English self-concepts in all facets were higher than those of male junior middle school students.All these findings suggest quite strongly that there is a reciprocal relationship between junior middle school students’ English self-concepts and their English achievements.These two variables mutually affect each other.Under the helpful guidance of affective teaching approach,English teachers are supposed to have a complete understanding of junior middle school students’ English self-concept characteristics and its correlation with English achievement,so as to bring desirable English learning results.