A Study On The Correlation Of English Majors’ Thinking Styles,Listening Strategies And Listening Achievements

English is regarded as a lingua franca for international communication.And it is widely adopted in many fields,such as business,technology,culture and education.In China,most students choose English as their second language,and listening is crucial to English learning.However,many learners express that listening achievements are hard to be improved.Studies have shown that there are many factors affecting students’ listening achievements.Some studies explore the relationship among thinking styles,listening strategies and listening achievements.Yet a few studies have been carried out on English majors.Based on Sternberg’s(1997)Mental Self-government Theory and O’Malley and Chamot’s(1990)Language Learning Strategy Theory,this study aims to explore the relationship among English majors’ thinking styles,listening strategies and listening achievements.And it investigates the following three research questions.1.What is the relationship between English majors’ thinking styles and their listening achievements? 2.What is the relationship between English majors’ listening strategies and their listening achievements? 3.What is the relationship between English majors’ thinking styles and listening strategies?By the means of mixed methods,this study selects ninety sophomore English majors from a university in Hebei Province as the research subjects.Quantitative data are collected by the means of thinking styles inventory revised by Sternberg et al.(2007),listening strategy questionnaire(Liang Wenxia,2010)and final listening test papers.SPSS 25.0 is used for descriptive statistics,Pearson product moment correlation and Independent-Samples T Test.In addition,the researcher has semi-structured interviews with eight students and collects qualitative data.The results suggest that: 1.English majors of second grade tend to have executive style,legislative style and hierarchical style.Yet,they do not tend to have global style and anarchic style.Only judicial style is found to be significantly and positively correlated with listening achievements.Significant differences between advanced group students and low group students are found in anarchic style and global style.2.English majors of second grade use cognitive strategy most frequently,followed by metacognitive strategy and affective strategy.The total listening strategies and cognitive strategy are positively associated with listening achievements.The subcategories of directed attention,elaboration,inferencing and self-encouragement are correlated with listening achievements positively.Excluding the strategy of lowering anxiety,advanced group students use more strategies than low group students.However,the differences fail to achieve statistical significance.3.Sophomore English majors’ thinking styles and listening strategies are correlated significantly and positively.Metacognitive strategy is correlated with legislative style,judicial style,hierarchical style,monarchic style,external style and liberal style.Cognitive strategy is associated with legislative style,judicial style,hierarchical style,monarchic style,oligarchic style,external style and liberal style.Affective strategy has a correlation with judicial style,monarchic style and external style.Furthermore,it is hoped that this study can provide some implications for teachers and students.Taking students’ thinking styles differences into consideration,teachers are supposed to incorporate listening strategy instruction into regular listening classrooms so as to improve students’ listening achievements.Students are supposed to be aware of their thinking styles,listening strategies and the two factors’ influence on listening achievements,and develop independent learning ability consciously.