hapter 1 Intruduction
1.1 Background of the Study
For the past several decades, the development of science and technology and international exchange make foreign language teaching and learning play a more and more important role in our life. Since 1970s, a gradual but significant shift has taken place in the field of education, resulting in greater stress on learners and learning. Emphasis of research shifted from teaching methods, which used to be dominant inthat field, to individual differences of language learners. Increasing numbers oflanguage researchers have become more and more interested in individual differencesin learners’ cognitive psychology. Teachers and researchers become more interested in“how to learn” than in “how to teach”, and realize the importance of individual differences, such as ages, beliefs, learning strategies, learning styles, aptitudes,motivations, personalities, etc., among which the learning style has become one of the most active areas of exploration.
在过去的几十年里，科学和技术的发展和国际交流，使外语教学和学习在我们的生活中发挥着越来越重要的影响。自20世纪70年代以来，英语论文，一个渐进的，但重要的转变发生在教育领域，学习者和学习造成更大的压力。从教学措施，用于在该领域占主导地位的语言学习者个体异同的探讨重点转移。越来越多的语言生活的探讨人员已经变得越来越有兴趣学习者的认知心理的个体异同。教师和探讨人员越来越有兴趣在“如何学习”比“怎样教”，实现个体异同，如年龄，信仰，英语论文范文，学习策略，学习风格，能力，动机，个性等的重要性，其中学习风格已成为探究最活跃的地区之一。
Learning style theory is a field of educational psychology that has influenced onteaching and learning practice. In 1954, American scholar Herbert put forward theconcept of “learning style” for the first time. This concept of learning style isborrowed from psychology. Until late 1970s, researchers have shown much concernon learning style as an important cognitive factor (Dunn et al., 1989). And learningstyle did not become mature until 1980s and 1990s (Jiang Zukang, 1994). Botheducational theorists and psychological theorists have attached much importance tolearning styles during the short developing history. It has been discussed extensivelyin the educational psychology literature (Claxton & Murrell, 1987) and specially inthe context of language learning by Oxford and his colleagues (Oxford, 1990).Ellis(1989) argues that learning style makes foreign language learners different fromone another and may result in the rate and ultimate success of their learning. When anindividual is participating in a learning task, the learning is usually accomplishedmore rapidly and retained longer if it is presented in ways that the individual prefers (Claxton & Ralston, 1978). If the learners are aware of their learning styles, they mayattempt to adapt their styles in order to enhance their classroom learning (Eliason,1989). Many researchers also have realized the importance of learning styles andbegan to study it. And researches on learning styles can deepen the understanding ofthe individual differences and in turn threw light on language learning process (Reid,2017).
The ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains, and retrievesinformation are collectively termed as the individual’s learning style (Reid, 2017).Learning style has been broadly discussed in the educational psychology literature(Claxton & Murrell 1987) and especially in the context of language learning byOxford and her colleagues (Oxford, 1993), and in the past few decades, more than 30learning style assessment instruments have been designed (Felder, 1995).
1.2 Purpose of the Study
In China’s current education
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