A Study Of Cultivating Middle School Students' Autonomous Learning Abilities In Rural Areas

The National English Curriculum(2011)puts an emphasis on how to cultivate students'English autonomous learning in primary and secondary schools.However,English learning is both passive and inefficient in rural middle schools at present,and some English teachers and students have rarely heard of the concept of "autonomous learning".In the present study,the author surveyed the 7th graders in Weiyuan County Junior Middle School through questionnaire,which included six dimensions of autonomous learning-motivation,learning attitude and consciousness,plans,monitoring ability,strategies,and evaluation.The status quo of students' autonomous learning ability were thoroughly discussed based on the data collected from questionnaires.The present study aims to cultivate students' ability of English autonomous learning strategies and to draw the teachers and students' attention to autonomous learning.The thesis also put forward suggestions to the English teachers in rural areas in order to enhance students' autonomous learning.Based on the framework of humanistic learning theory,metacognitive strategies and constructivism theory,the present study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods.The author carried out experiment teaching for 18 weeks.The subjects of the research are 120 students from two parallel 7th grade classes.One class is an experimental group,the other one is control group.The author adopted an English autonomous teaching mode in the experimental group,using different ways to stimulate students' motivation and develop their learning strategies.Data collected from the English tests,questionnaires and interviews were analyzed in order to investigate the following three questions:(1)What is the status quo of English autonomous learning in junior middle school students in rural areas?(2)What are the factors that affect students' English autonomous learning ability in rural middle school?(3)Is there a positive correlation between students' autonomous learning ability and their academic achievement?The major findings of the study are as follows:(1)Students' English autonomous learning ability is generally low and the different dimensions of autonomous learning ability is not balanced in rural middle school.(2)Influences from families,schools,teachers,and students themselves may affect students'autonomous learning ability.(3)There is a positive correlation between students' autonomous learning ability and their academic achievement.