A Preliminary Exploration Of The Correlations Between Group Dynamics And English Autonomous Learning Behaviors Of The Chinese High School Students

Nowadays there are many theoretical and empirical researches about group dynamics and learner autonomy respectively at home and abroad. However, few empirical researches have paid attention to the relationships between these two elements, especially in China. While literature suggests that there are correlations between learner group and individual learners'level of autonomy in college students, little is known about the high school students.This study aims to explore: (1) the correlations between group dynamics (especially group formation and group characteristics), and senior students'autonomous learning behaviors, in the context of China mainland; (2) from individual learners'own account, to what extent does a learner group influence their autonomous learning behaviors and what are the possible causes of their opinions; (3) the reality of high school students'group dynamics and autonomous learning behaviors.This research employs a quantitative study and a qualitative analysis, including questionnaire, qualitative interviews and classroom observation. The key components of group dynamics, which are considered most relevant to L2 learning by D?rnyei and Malderez, are employed as standards to evaluate the level of group dynamics of senior students. The level of learners'autonomous behaviors, which can basically reflect the reality of their autonomous leaning, is taken as the standard to evaluate learner's autonomy in the present study. Questionnaires were administered to 180 senior students in three different schools in the same city of Shanxi province. 32 students chosen from the 180 participants of questionnaire test took part in the open-ended interviews. Classroom observation was carried out in the three middle schools.The results from the questionnaire show that there is indeed a close correlation between group dynamics and autonomous learning behaviors. The viewpoints collected from most of the interviewees are in accordance with the statistical results in questionnaire survey. The results obtained from classroom observation corroborate the questionnaire findings and interview results.The present study, as a repetition of Ms Chang's experiment, supports her views on the correlations between group dynamics and autonomous behaviors. It identifies the correlations between group dynamics and autonomous learning behaviors, and exhibits the reality of group dynamics and autonomous learning behaviors of the ordinary high school students, which has significant implications for the improvement of high school class management and English teaching methodology in mainland China.