A Study On Fostering Students Learner Autonomy Based On Learner-Centeredness In ESL Classrooms At A Vocational School

Over the recent years,"learner autonomy"has become a hot topic in the foreign languages teaching, there has been more focus on learner-centeredness. As the concept of life-long learning is more and more widely accepted, every language learner wants to be a successful learner, the successful learner can take charge of one's own learning. The purpose of language learning is not to take the student has mastered language knowledge as standard, but also to see if they can use language to express one's thought fluently. The most important thing is that whether has grasped the leaning strategy that learn the language in the future, whether will be able to achieve the goal that self-control study process, that is learner's autonomy. To promote the learner's ability to learn autonomously, both the teacher and the learner should change their roles, and the traditional"teacher-centered"teaching method should also be transferred into"learner-centered"teaching method. All the above is the reason why we want to carry out this research.This research is based on constructivism, humanistic learning theory, and cognitive psychology theory in the second language learning and acquisition. In this research, an experiment on fostering vocational school students learner's autonomy was carried out. At the beginning of the experiment, by a survey, pre-test and interview, we analyzed the factors which were related to the learner autonomy, motivation, attitude, learning strategy and learning style. All of these helped us to get some information about the problems which appeared in learner's ability to learn autonomously. Then learner profiles were established for learners both in the experimental class and in the control class. The experimental class was given courses by"learner-centered"teaching method. The students in the experimental class were encouraged to participate in the preparation of the class, in the classroom autonomous interaction, and in the extensive reading after class. At the same time, they were trained to master and use some meta-cognitive and learning strategies. Through the recording and updating of the learner profile, they were trained to self-monitor, self-evaluate, and reflect on their learning so that the learner's awareness of autonomy and their ability to learn autonomously can be improved.After a ten-week training, the second survey and post-test indicated that there was great difference between the Experimental class and the Control class. It turns out that the leaner-centered teaching method is an effective way to promote the learner autonomy. Because only two classes participated in the experiment, the present research is limited. While by the analysis of the experiment, it still can be concluded that improving learner autonomy is a long-project work. It depends on the functions of both the internal factors and external factors. And the ability to learn autonomously does not grow at random, or occasionally, and fostering learner autonomy is a generally developing progress. Learner autonomy can be developed with others'help and can be cultivated in an appropriate context.