A Study On The English Learning Self-efficacy Of Primary School High Graders

New English Curriculum For Chinese Primary Schools requires teachers to pay more attention to the influence and impact that students' psychological and emotional factors make on their English learning.Self-efficacy refers to people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of actions.A number of researches have proved that self-efficacy is positively correlated to students' academic performances and it also has great impact on students' physical and mental health.At present,in the primary school stage,as the English learning content and the degree of difficulty is progressively increased,many primary school high graders' enthusiasm for learning English is gradually declining,and their learning achievements are far from satisfactory.This has become a significant issue to be solved in primary English teaching.Under this situation,this study attempts to make a study on the English learning self-efficacy of primary school high graders,including its general level,its changing trend and the main influencing factors,hoping to provide teachers some effective methods and strategies for improving the primary school students' self-efficacy in English learning.Based on the theory of Bandura's self-efficacy,this study takes 215 high graders of a primary school in Shouguang City,Shangdong Province as the research subjects.Questionnaire and interview are adopted as the research instruments to address the following issues:(1)The status quo of English learning self-efficacy of primary school high graders;(2)Whether there are significant differences in English learning self-efficacy among primary school high graders in terms of gender and grade variables,and the possible changing trend;(3)The main factors affecting the primary school high graders' English learning self-efficacy.The results of the study show that:(1)The overall level of English learning self-efficacy of primary school high graders is at the intermediate level.(2)There is no significant difference in English learning self-efficacy among primary school high graders in gender variable,but the average level of girls' English learning self-efficacy in grade four is a bit higher than that of boys,the level of boys and girls' English learning self-efficacy in grade five is basically the same,and the level of the boys' English learning self-efficacy in grade six is much higher than that of the girls.There is no significant difference in English learning self-efficacy among primary school high graders in terms of grade variable.However,the overall development trend of the students' English learning self-efficacy is moving upward gradually from the fourth grade to the fifth grade,and is moving downward from the fifth grade to the sixth grade.(3)The study indicates that individual's success or failure experience,the effects of role models,teachers and parents' evaluations,emotional and physiological state,attribution style,goal setting and family background are the main factors influencing students' English learning self-efficacy.Based on the results and findings of the study,some suggestions are proposed for improving and promoting primary school high graders' English learning self-efficacy,hoping to provide some guidance for English teaching practice in primary school.