This study is based on a great practical significance in that with the help of the results, and language teachers will realize that they have their own teaching styles which may differ from the learning styles of their students and that teaching to the styles of their students can greatly foster students’ positive attitudes towards learning as well as enhance their motivations to learn. What’s more, the results can be interpreted as some insights into the teaching style and learning style, which allow teachers to choose alternative teaching strategies designed to accommodate a perse population of learners. Theoretically, this study will increase both students’ and teachers’ knowledge of learning styles and teaching styles, especially clarifying the correlation between teaching style, learning style and language achievement. 

1.3 The Outline of This Paper

The paper includes five parts. Introduction on the general study background and the significance of the research goes first. Then, the second part reviews the conceptual definition and classification of both teaching style and learning style, the relationship between them at home and abroad. Meanwhile, the theoretical basis and studies relevant to the present research are also explicit. The third part refers to the methodology of the research including the objectives, instruments as well as the research procedures. The fourth part analyses the results collected from questionnaires. After demonstrating the interpretations of the results, part five following exhibits the conclusions drawn from the study, and lists implications and pedagogical and theoretical implications as well as recommendations for future research.

2. Literature Review 

2.1 Review of Learning Styles

2.1.1 Learning Style Research

Learning style, since firstly proposed by Herbert Thelen in 1954, it has become a main concern of different researching fields, such as teaching methodology educational psychology, learning theory and so on. Its definitions are as much as that of people who study it. Joy Reid (2002) interpreted learning styles as a person’s natural, habitual and preferred ways of absorbing, processing and retaining fresh information and skills. These learning styles last, regardless of what teaching method and content area (Reid, 2002). According to Dunn (2000), learning style is a way when students concentrate themselves on trying to grasp and remember new or difficult knowledge skills. 

In China, Mr. Tan Dingliang defined learning style as a consistent way of learning, with learners’ personality, and is the sum of learning strategies and learning tendencies (2004). Hu Binwu (1996) pointed out that learning style refers to an inpidualized learning method and learning tendency which different learners have behaved in the long-term process of learning. This kind of learning style is a method, a strategy or a procedure that the learners adopt to fulfill a learning task, while learning tendency includes learners’ motivation, attitude, feeling towards learning activities as well as their perseverance and preference towards learning materials and learning environment. As for Liao Zeying (2000), she believed learning style refers to the methods adopted by inpiduals to deal with messages in the process of cognition and learning as well as strategies employed when learners react to different tasks, involving inpiduals’ preferred methods in dealing with information or solving learning problems. According to Yang Zhiliang (2001), learning style mainly refers to learning methods commonly adopted by students in the process of language learning. In other words, it refers to students’ tendency or preference to the learning method.

Therefore, it should be noticed that the definition of learning style varies in the extension as well as different points of view. And it can be broadly summarized as follows: Learning style is a learner’s stable ways of absorbing and processing new information; Learning styles have personalized perception and cognitive styles, which is influenced by social and emotional factors; learning styles would determine the learners’ learning activities. The formation of learning styles is influenced by both many factors and some constraints, and these different elements eventually develop into different learning modes.  初中英语教学风格与学习风格匹配状况的调查研究(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_50048.html