2.2.2 Teaching Styles Theories and Its Influence on Students 6

2.3 Review of Research on the T-L Styles Relationship 6

2.3.1 A Review of the Researches Abroad 6

2.3.2 A Review of Domestic Researches 6

3. Research Procedure and Data Collection 8

3.1 Goals and Research Questions of this Study 8

3.2 Participants 8

3.3 Instruments 8

3.4 Data Collection and Analysis 8

4. Data Analysis and Academic Discussion 10

4.1 The Overall Tendency of English Learners’ Learning Styles Preferences 10

4.2 The Overall Tendency of English Teachers’ Teaching Styles Preferences 10

4.3 Comparison and Contrast between T-L Styles 11

5. Conclusions and Implications 12

5.1 Theoretical Significances 12

5.2 Pedagogical Implications 12

5.2.1 Implications to English Learners 12

5.2.2 Implications to English Teachers 13

5.3 Limitations of the Study 14

5.4 Further Researches and Future Expectations 15

References 16

Appendix I 18

Appendix II 22

 A Study of Matching Between English Teaching Styles and Learning Styles in Junior High Schools

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Along with the rapid development of globalization, there is an increasingly necessity of mastering English as an indispensable tool of communication. Meanwhile, with the research on second language acquisition (SLA), as well as the implementation of human-oriented education, people tend to pay more attention to inpidualized development, and it becomes one of the topics that New Curriculum calls for. Hence, the emphasis of contemporary education has gradually been shifted from “teaching” to “learning”, and more and more importance has been attached to the impacts of learner’s inpidual differences on the process of language acquisition. Learning style, as a significant cognitive factor which affects second or foreign language learning in one way or another attracts much attention in the field of SLA research in the past decades.

Up to now, studies on teaching and learning styles are mainly implemented in western culture environment. Nevertheless, only a few similar studies were done in China. According to the related literature review, much of the empirical research concentrated mainly on their theories and research developments in Western countries. Only a small proportion of researchers paid attention to the relationship between learning styles and teaching styles in China, most of which are qualitative studies. Very few quantitative studies were carried out to investigate whether teachers’ teaching styles are matched with students’ learning styles. Hence, it is necessary to find out the actual relationship between students’ learning style and teachers’ teaching style via quantitative studies. 

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research

Tracing the development of Foreign Language Teaching, we may find out that the discussion of teaching method becomes the mainstream. However, as is known to all, teaching is a process for the teacher and his students to have verbal communication, frequent interactions and collaborative activities. Therefore, it is insufficient to concentrate a study merely on the aspects of teaching while neglecting the learning process and differences. Even the same teaching method does not necessarily guarantee the same learning outcome. Under this kind of discrepancy, the researchers of language teaching begin to pay close attention to learners’ inpidual differences as well as characteristics. The preference to certain teaching approaches constitutes teachers teaching styles, which shows a continuous stability and unique personality and does not change along with different teaching contents and objects. Similarly, as learners of a second language, students do not come into the classroom with an empty brain, conversely, they have obtained abundant experience and have their own attitudes towards different phenomena in previous study. Therefore, in order to allow the learners to fully extend their potential abilities, teacher must adopt a flexible instructional delivery and design their classes based on the inpidual differences of their learners.