Research On The English-learning Autonomy Of "First-batch" And "Third-batch" Students In China

Learner autonomy has already been an educational goal both at home and abroad, but real attention has not been paid to it in the foreign language teaching in China until the past decade. The reason is that the teacher-centered mode has been playing a leading role in Chinese foreign language teaching. With the introduction and development of theories in second language acquisition and modern teaching techniques in recent years, experts and scholars involved are attaching greater and greater importance to learner autonomy in foreign language learning. Many language educators claim that the teaching process should pay more attention to the dominance of students so as to make teaching suitable to students' individual development. Now the concept of learner autonomy has become very popular in foreign language teaching in China.Firstly, the thesis presents an overall review of the literature relevant to learner autonomy. The review focuses on three important learning theories related to the emergence of learner autonomy;the background information about learner autonomy;all kinds of definitions of learner autonomy;characteristics of autonomous learners;roles of language teachers in an autonomous classroom and other relevant researches on learner autonomy. After the review of the relevant researches, we find that the present researches on the English-learning autonomy of students in Chinese universities are still not perfect. For example, first-batch and third-batch students appear because of the expansion of enrollments in many universities in China. People usually think that first-batch and third-batch students have great differences in the English-learning autonomy. Therefore the thesis attempts to make an investigation into the English-learning autonomy of first-batch and third-batch students.Secondly, the thesis provides the information about the methodology of the study, focusing on the design of the questionnaire. The subjects of thestudy are first-batch and third-batch freshmen from the departments of pedagogics and computer science in Shanxi University. In order to prove that the questionnaire is valid, item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis are used in this study. After the exploratory factor analysis, the thesis develops Xu Jinfen, Pen Renzhong and Wu Weiping's (2004:64) definition of the English-learning autonomy into six dimensions. They are respectively: making out their own learning objectives and plans;identifying the teacher's purposes and requirements and working towards them;evaluating the learning results;monitoring the use of learning strategies;making an effective use of learning strategies and monitoring their own English knowledge.Thirdly, the thesis presents an analysis of results of the questionnaire in detail in order to compare the differences of the English-learning autonomy between first-batch and third-batch students. The data obtained by the questionnaire are processed by SPSS. 11.0. Then the obtained results are classified into six groups according to the thesis' further development of the dimensions of the English-learning autonomy. The mean of every item involved in the six groups is compared between first-batch and third-batch students. In order to test whether the mean difference is significant or not, that is, in order to test whether the English-learning autonomy difference between first-batch and third-batch students is significant or not, t-test for independent samples is used in this thesis. The results show that both first-batch and third-batch students' autonomy in learning English is not very high. Though first-batch students have a bit higher autonomy than third-batch students, the differences between them are not significant. Therefore when the English teacher wants to improve the English-learning autonomy of university students, he or she need not differentiate first-batch and third-batch students.Based on the findings of the study, the thesis then deals with nine ways that can be weaved into regular classroom activities in order to promote more independence in learners and to help them foster the English-learningautonomy. They are respectively: giving students some choices;encouraging students to take part in group work;encouraging learners to do self-evaluation;asking students to set their own learning goals;using authentic texts;encouraging students to do syllabus negotiation with the teacher;engaging students in productive tasks;encouraging peer evaluation and creating a self-access facility in the classroom. The thesis concludes with the limitations of the present thesis and some possible researches in the future.