A Study On Junior High School Students’ English Learning Engagement

Learning engagement is an important indicator for observing students’ learning process as well as predicting students’ academic achievements,and plays an important role in measuring education quality and student development.In recent years,domestic research on learning engagement has mainly focused on higher education,and the research subjects are mostly undergraduates,vocational and technical students,and so on,but there are few studies on junior high school students.In terms of English subjects,research on junior high school English learning engagement is relatively scarce.The research on student learning engagement involves behavioral,emotional and cognitive engagement.This research intended to explore the status quo of middle school students’ English learning engagement and the relationship between learning engagement and academic performance to enrich the research content of learning engagement.It took the students in three grades of a junior high school in Kunming as the research subjects.Through the use of research methods such as questionnaire,interviews,as well as in-class and out of class observations,the students’ learning engagement data in the three dimensions of cognition,behavior,and emotion were collected.In the light of the outcome of data analysis,the current situation of junior high school students’ English learning engagement,the relationship between learning engagement and English performance were expounded,and countermeasures and suggestions to improve the English learning input of junior high school students were put forward accordingly.This research mainly discusses the following aspects:1)What is the current state of junior high school students’ English learning engagement?2)What is the relationship between junior high school students’ English learning engagement and their English academic achievement?3)What factors mainly affect junior high school students’ English learning engagement?The research results show that: 1)Junior high school students’ English learning engagement is generally above the average,and the degree of their behavioral engagement is the highest,followed by emotional engagement,with cognitive engagement the lowest.2)Junior high school students’ English learning engagement is positively correlated with their English learning achievement,and it can predict students’ English learning achievement.The more students engage in English learning,the better their English achievement is.And behavioral engagement is the most important predictor of English achievement.3)Through interview,in and out of classroom observation of three students,it is found out that except for the degree of students’ English learning engagement,individual differences,the relationship between students and their English teachers,the relationship between students and peers,and the school environment are some main influential factors that affect students’ English learning engagement.