Study Of The Correlation Between Junior High School Students’ FD/FI Cognitive Styles And Their English Grammar Learning Strategies

Grammar plays an important role in English learning.Grammar learning is not the ultimate goal of language learning.The purpose of learning grammar is to help learners learn language well.However,the English grammar study of junior high school students is a weak point in their English learning.And thus grammar teaching has been regarded as the key and difficult part in English teaching all the time.As a result,its teaching effectiveness has been at a low level.In the past,grammar teaching often focused on how the teacher taught,but ignored learners’ position in grammar learning.A large part of researches on grammar teaching have been carried out from the perspective of teachers.With the development of cognitive theory,contemporary educators have realized that the fundamental goal of education is to make students become independent and effective learners.Therefore,studies on learning strategies,which are learner-centered,have attracted the attention of educators.Previous studies prove that,learning strategies can greatly improve learners’ learning effectiveness.The individual difference of learners is an important factor that cannot be ignored in English learning.Among the numerous individual differences,learners’ cognitive style has been the focus of many educators and researchers.Previous researches have shown that cognitive style is one of the factors that influence learners’ choice of learning strategies.One of the important dimensions of cognitive styles is field dependence and field independence.Based on this,this thesis explored junior high school students’ use of grammar learning strategies from the perspective of FD/FI cognitive styles,in order to help junior high school students to find the suitable grammar learning strategies so as to improve their grammar learning and provide reference to teachers in grammar teaching.This study has chosen the grade one students from a junior high school in Guangzhou as the participants to answer the following questions through the Cognitive Style Figure Test and Grammar Learning Strategies Questionnaire.(1)What are the characteristics of junior high school students’ cognitive styles of field dependence and field independence?(2)What is the distribution of the four categories of grammar learning strategies?(3)Is there any difference between field dependent and field independent students in the frequency of their use of different grammar learning strategies?(4)Is there any correlation between students’ field dependent and field independent cognitive styles and the distribution of their use of grammar learning strategies?The results of the study show that,junior high school students tend to be field independent;they are more inclined to use affective strategies and cognitive strategies instead of metacognitive strategies and communicative strategies in grammar learning;there is no significant correlation between their cognitive styles of field dependence/independence and the inclination of their use of the four categories of grammar learning strategies.In the end,this paper will try to make some suggestions for English grammar learning and teaching based on the study results.