Fostering Autonomy In High School Students With Low English Proficiency

Due to different reasons, some high school students become less efficient in English learning. In order to help them, some English learning strategy training is needed. It is hoped that the training may be of great benefit to the students. It can help the students form good learning habits and efficient learning strategies to develop the students'learning autonomy, thus make a solid foundation for their lifelong learning and development.First of all, the thesis presents an investigation on learning strategies employed by the students with low efficiency. The subjects were 20 Senior Three learners in Qingzhen No.1 High School, Guighou province. They were selected from two classes in Senior Three. The reason for selecting them is that they did well in other subjects but they are not so good at English learning. The results of the investigation indicate that the students with low efficiency are lack of good management and suitable learning strategies.Based on the results and the model proposed by Cohen, An action research programme is designed to train the students'English learning strategies and raise the students'awareness of learner autonomy. The programme lasted for about 6 months. As far as the scores in the College Entrance Examination are concerned, the students have a higher mean score than they did before the programme. The analysis of the students'learning diaries also show that the students benefit from the programme by using more learning strategies than before.