A Survey Study On English Self-efficacy Of Grade 5 Primary School Students

English self-efficacy,as a significant influencing factor of language learning,has been the research focus among the western scholars since 1970s.According to the literature review,there are numerous researches about English self-efficacy,but fewer studies are related to English self-efficacy of primary school students.This thesis mainly focuses on English Self-efficacy of Grade 5 Primary School Students in Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School at Yangzhou.By exploring the Grade 5 Primary School Students’ English Self-efficacy,the purpose of this study aims at providing some reasonable suggestions for English teaching in primary schools,expecting to improve the English scores of primary school students.In order to enrich this field,this paper is undertaken to explore the general situation of Grade 5 primary school students’ English self-efficacy in Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School at Yangzhou,the differences in English self-efficacy between high achievers and low achievers and to examine the correlation between Grade 5 primary school students’English self-efficacy and their English scores through the questionnaire and interview.The research questions addressed in this thesis are1)What is the general situation of Grade 5 Primary School Students’ English self-efficacy?2)Are there any differences in English self-efficacy between high achievers and low achievers?If yes,what are the differences?3)What is the correlation between Grade 5 Primary School Students’ English self-efficacy and their English scores?(1)What is the overall correlation?(2)What is the respective correlation between four types(General Self-efficacy,Listening Self-efficacy,Speaking Self-efficacy and Reading Self-efficacy)of English self-efficacy and English scores?Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in the study.The quantitative research mainly involves a questionnaire which is adapted from Marsh’s(1984)Self-description questionnaire III(SDQ III)and the whole internal reliability reaches.948 The students in three random classes from Grade 5 take part in the investigation and altogether there are 111 students.The questionnaires are given out to the research subjects by the researcher on Sept.30th,2019,and finally 105 questionnaires are found valid.Then,the data is processed by SPSS 17.0.The qualitative research is a semi-structured interview with 6 students being selected from those whose questionnaires are considered valid.Besides,among the six students,three of them come from the high-achieved group and the other three are from the low-achieved group.The interview is carried out in Chinese and the whole process is tape-recorded.Afterwards,the results are transcribed into English and the transcriptions of the interview are carefully analyzed.Detailed analysis of both quantitative and qualitative research yields the following findings.Firstly,the results of descriptive analyses reveal that Grade 5 primary school students’Total self-efficacy is high,with the mean score reaching 4.069.In terms of four categories of English self-efficacy,the mean scores are all above 4.000 except Speaking Self-efficacy(Mean=3.903).Moreover,the students are perceived to possess the highest Listening Self=efficacy(Mean=4.1 81),followed by General Self-efficacy(Mean=4.097)and Reading Self-efficacy(Mean=4.095).Secondly,there exist some differences between low achievers and high achievers,with high achievers getting higher mean score than that for low achievers.When it comes to specific items of English self-efficacy,the two groups differentiate significantly with each other in General Self-efficacy(p=.000),Reading Self-efficacy(p=.000),Speaking Self-efficacy(p=.000)and Listening Self-efficacy(p=.006).In addition,high achievers get higher mean scores than low achievers in all the specific items of English self-efficacy.Thirdly,there exist some correlation between English self-efficacy and English scores of Grade 5 primary school students.The students’ Total self efficacy is positively and highly correlated to their English scores(r=.654**)at the.01 level.In terms of four categories of English self-efficacy,General Self-efficacy,Listening Self-efficacy,Speaking Self-efficacy and Reading Self efficacy are positively correlated with students’ English scores at the.01 level.As for General Self-efficacy,compared with Listening Self-efficacy,Speaking Self efficacy and Reading Self efficacy,its correlation is the strongest(r=.683**).Reading Self efficacy ranks the second.It is significantly correlated to students’English scores(r=.647**).Speaking Self-efficacy is highly correlated to students’ English scores(r=.637**).When it comes to Listening Self-efficacy,the correlation is also highly correlated(r=.356**).In light of the findings,this paper provides some suggestions for English teaching in primary schools.For teachers,they should take some measures to stimulate students’awareness of English self-efficacy,guide students to improve their sense of English self-efficacy in English learning and pay more attention to the low achievers in developing their English self-efficacy.In addition,since General Self-efficacy,Listening Self-efficacy,Speaking Self-efficacy and Reading Self efficacy influence students’ English scores,teachers should develop students’ English self-efficacy in these aspects to improve students’ English scores.For students,they should set their own learning goals according to their own situations to improve their English self-efficacy.When students believe they can achieve the goals they made with the teacher’s help,their English self-efficacy can be improved and in this way they will keep learning to get good English scores.