An Investigation Of The Perceptual Learning Styles Of English For Grade One Students

The study of learning style is one of the study categories of learner individual difference.The concept of learning style and the study of learning style are systematically presented by Dunn and Dunn(1983),Price(1975)and Reid(1987).Chinese researchers,such as Tan Dingliang(1995)and Hu Xiaoqiong(1997)also try to further the study on learning styles.There are many researchers,which choose the college students as the subjects while little research has been done on senior school learners.This thesis mainly regards the learners of senior high school as subject.The thesis focuses on the senior high school learners' perceptual learning styles preferences,differences between males and females and the correlation between their learning styles and their English achievement.Based on the evidence,it can help them to improve the awareness of learning style and it can help them to choose appropriate study methods.Meanwhile,some suggestions are put forward for workers in high school English teaching.By employed the questionnaire of Reid,the author collected data from the 140 learners in No.8 senior high school in Yining and then the statistic software SPSS 19.0 was employed analyze the data and the major findings are as follows:(1)The learners of grade one of high school who prefer multiple perceptual learning style.Kinesthetic style is most preferred,and the individual style is the least preferred.(2)There are some significant differences existing between the male and female learners in some learning style.Male learners prefer individual learning style,while female learners prefer the visual learning.(3)High level and low level of high school students have some correlation differences between auditory and individual perceptual learning style.Based on those findings,this paper puts forward some suggestions on English teaching and learning from teachers' and students' aspects.First,English teachers should match teaching styles to students' learning styles.Second,teachers design a variety teaching activities,learning tasks as well as evaluating students learning results in different ways.Students should raise the awareness of learning styles and expand their learning styles.