A Survey Of Senior High School English Teachers’ Beliefs About Learner Autonomy

The definition of learner autonomy has received great attention of language teachers andresearchers since it was introduced to China. The requirements of the new curriculum clearlystate the growth of students’ autonomous learning competence as an aim of English teaching,which represent an important change for senior high school English teachers in terms ofteaching method, course materials and theories of language learning and teaching. Howteachers regard learner autonomy will, to some degree, affect their classroom practices.However, the beliefs of teacher, not only at home but also abroad, have got properly littleresearch attention. Besides, the beliefs of language teachers’ are still less studied comparedwith these of teachers who teach other subjects. This research assumes that senior high schoolEnglish teachers are to be cognitively and vocationally prepared to cultivate learner autonomyin their classroom. The present research thus prepare to describe and examine the beliefs ofteachers’ about autonomous learning in response to the new situation, as seen in the researchof four schools in a city of Shijiazhuang province.This research is descriptive in nature. The quantitative and qualitative data were bothobtained from questionnaire investigations and group interviews to serve the study aim. Moreparticularly, the author tried in the first place to look out what beliefs senior high schoolEnglish teachers hold about autonomous learning at the present moment when they positivelytake part in the reform which aim is to improve the quality of senior high school Englishteaching. To identify whether correlations exist between teachers’ beliefs and their classroompractices, the author adopted statistic processes to reveal the relationship.The findings show that the teachers’ subjects did teach in accordance with their beliefs intheir mind conducting their practices in their classroom. But the results reveal a distastefulpicture of their beliefs because these teachers were confused about what they should act intheir teaching practice to cultivate learner autonomy though they have absorbed some changesinto their mind and, to some degree, into their behavior in response to the new situation.Correlations were confirmed between those teachers’ beliefs and their teaching practices.Three of the nine factors drawn from teachers’ beliefs were figured as important predictivevariables to affect their practices favoring autonomy. The quantitative and qualitative analyses both show that the teachers reveal greatpreference to tradition and deficient believe on their students’ competence to learn positivelyand independently. In general, there appears to be more consciousness of responsibility androle confirmed in these teachers but little integration and realization of their practices.When we are cautious about the study findings owe to the many constraints on theresearch containing the author’s restricted knowledge and research competence, the researchmay still reveal that senior high school English teachers would have a hard time in facilitatingtheir learners to be autonomous. We should not be over optimistic about the fulfillment oflearner autonomy, particularly in the high schools which this research has surveyed, owe to somany unsettled questions. Teachers in this condition are needed to be equipped withprofessional skills and cognitive readiness to deal with various aspects involved in the growthof learner autonomy, for example, the strategy training, the degree to which teachers relatetheir classroom work with students’ own effort, the extent of flexibility in the fulfillment of acurriculum and so on.It can thus be expected that this thesis may offer some empirical evidence for knowingsenior high school English teachers’ beliefs about English teaching and learning. Consideringthe findings of this research, the author believe that more attention should be offered to theteachers’ beliefs change than ever specially when the reform is being facilitated nationwideand a new curriculum conducted on such a big scale.