As the focus of foreign language teaching switches from teachers to students, individual learner differences, especially learning strategy, learning anxiety, and learning motivation have received considerable attention from scholars. There are plenty of studies concentrating on the relationships of each two variables, few studies have examined the three variables together. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the current use of learning strategies, learning anxiety levels, and types of learning motivation in which MOE requires teachers to help students; moreover, to explore correlations among these three variables.

A sample of 269 students employing a correlational survey design, was taken from a junior high school located in Anyang, Henan, China. The results show that, first, students employ learning strategies with medium frequency. There are grade and gender differences in the students’ use of strategies. Second, the majority of the students experience medium anxiety. Third, the students are motivated neutrally in English learning, and they have more deep motivation than surface motivation. Moreover, there are significant differences according to the types of motivation they have by gender. Fourth, the correlations between learning strategy, learning anxiety level, and learning motivation are significantly positively correlated to one another. Lastly, Structural Equation Modeling proves that students who use deep motivation more will apply memory, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies more while learning English.

This study provided insights into students’ current situation while learning English in the context of China. The results indicate that teachers may want to consider cultivating students’ use of learning strategies and learning motivation. And the way of fostering the use of memory, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies will help students to generate deep motivation which could fulfill the requirements of learning independently from MOE.