Implementing Vocabulary Notebooks To Promote Students' Autonomy In Senior High School

In 2003, the newly-promulgated English Criterion for Senior High School emphasized students' autonomous learning and life-long learning. In it, the ninth grade of the comprehensive language ability stated the highest requirement that "students should have learner autonomy". However, studies have showed that "the students don't know the strategies of the autonomous learning. They lack planning and management of their learning, can't expand the resource of learning English and have poor learner autonomy". (Chen Donghong, 2004).With the growing attention to learner autonomy in the field of English teaching, many teachers have realised the necessity of fostering autonomy. But few studies have happened in senior high school thus there is no improvement on this issue in senior high school. Consequently, the English criterion and the present situation put forward a new challenge for senior high school teachers. Herein lies the significance of this study.The focus of the study is whether the implementation of vocabulary notebooks can act as a tool to promote learner autonomy in learning English. An experimental design was employed. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires were applied to investigate the situation of learner autonomy. Pre-test and post-test vocabulary tests were borrowed to check students' learning results. In addition, in-depth interview and teacher's observation were used to gather more concrete and descriptive data. It...