A Study Of The Influence Of Family Cultural Background On Junior High School Students’ English Learning

With the coming of information age and economic globalization,the importance of English is increasingly prominent.However,foreign language learning is a complicated course since it is influenced both by learners’ internal factors and their external ones.The factors include those of family cultural background such as parents’ educational background and family cultural activities that may have influences on students’ English learning,which is necessary to do research on.Based on Stern’s and Spolsky’s theories on language learning and social factors,this study aims to explore the present situation of junior high school students’ family cultural background and its influences on their English achievement so as to provide suggestions for parents,English educators,and students to improve the English learning.Two research questions are proposed after a review of related studies both at home and abroad: 1)What’s the present situation of junior high school students’ family cultural backgrounds in terms of parents’ educational background and English foundation,family English learning resources and activities,and parents’ attention on students’ English learning? 2)What’s the correlation between junior high school students’ English learning achievement and family cultural backgrounds?The subjects of the investigation are 160 grade eight students randomly selected from the junior high school,Yantai Bilingual Experimental School.Two instruments are employed in the study-a questionnaire which is designed to investigate the subjects’ family cultural backgrounds and their English achievement,and an interview,which is complementary to the questionnaire and is designed to find out the family cultural factors that may result in the subjects’ low or high English learning achievement and to give some suggestions for the improvement of the students’ English learning.The data are analyzed by using SPSS19.0.Some major findings are as follows: 1)The present situation of the subjects’ family cultural background is not so favorable for their English learning.2)Except for parents’ educational background,many other factors of family cultural background investigated in this study have significant influence on junior high school students’ English learning achievement.3)Favorable family cultural background could increase students’ English learning activities and interest.However,family cultural background cannot determine students’ English learning achievement which is an outcome of the joint influence from both the internal and external factors of students.The results of the study have instructive significance both for parents and English educators as well as students themselves.Parents are supposed to improve their family English learning environment.English teachers and educators are suggested to pay attention to learners’ family cultural background and cooperate with parents effectively.Students should take the advantage of their favorable family cultural environment to promote their own English learning.