A Study On The Influence Of Classroom Environment On Autonomous English Learning In Junior High School

With change of educational ideas,learning to learn is in the center of English education for Junior High schools,which is consistent with the requirement of the New National Curriculum to cultivate students’ autonomous English learning ability.But learning always occurs in some certain environments,of which classroom environment has the most direct and closest connection with students learning and influences students’ behaviors in class(Zhao Qinghong & Xu Jinfen,2012).Autonomous English learning also occurs in classroom environment.However,the researches on the influence of classroom environment on students’ autonomous English learning in Junior High school are limited.Based on Lewin’s(1930s)field theory and Rodges’(1969)significant learning theory,the study aims to investigate the influence of classroom environment(teachers’ teaching and students’ learning)on autonomous English learning in Junior High school.The research questions are:(1)What are the general situation of classroom environment and autonomous English learning in Junior High school respectively?(2)Is there any influence of teachers’ teaching factors on autonomous English learning? If there is,to what extent?(3)Is there any influence of students’ learning factors on autonomous English learning? If there is,to what extent?(4)Are there any differences between teachers’ teaching and students’ learning in influencing students’ AEL? If there are,what differences?To answer the research questions,both quantitative and qualitative researches are adopted.In quantitative research,two questionnaires are used.Middle School Autonomous English Learning Inventory is from CCECEI designed by Sun Yunmei(2008),while Middle School English Classroom Environment Inventory is from a questionnaire designed by Xu Jinfen(2004).The questionnaires were delivered to 300 students in Grade Two from Enjiang Middle School.Descriptive,Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis were all used with SPSS17.0.The qualitative research mainly is semi-structured interviews with six students from two different classes to give more support to quantitative data.The results of this study can be demonstrated after the quantitative and qualitative study.Firstly,on the one hand,Junior High school students generally perceive English classroom environment to be positive.That is,they are satisfied with their English classroom environment.On the other hand,students’ autonomous English learning ability in Junior High school is relatively high,but there is also something students and teachers can do to improve the ability(total mean value of all the items equals 4.02).Secondly,there is significant influence of teachers’ teaching factors on autonomous English learning.More specifically speaking,every dimension in teachers’ teaching factors is significantly correlated with autonomous English learning.Teacher Innovation(Beta=.325,P <0.01)and Teacher Leadership(Beta=.232,P<0.01)play important role in influencing students’ autonomous English learning.On the contrary,Teacher Support and Equity are not able to enter the regression model which suggests that these two dimensions didn’t show significant influence on students’ autonomous English learning.Thirdly,there is significant influence of students’ learning factors on autonomous English learning.To be specific,every dimension in students’ learning significantly and positively correlated with students’ autonomous English learning.As for predictive power,Student Responsibility(Beta=.426,p<.001),Task Orientation(Beta=.233,p<.001)and Student Cohesiveness(Beta=.115,p<.05)can influence students’ autonomous English learning in positive and significant way,while Involvement and Cooperation cannot influence autonomous English learning significantly.Fourthly,as for the differences between the influence of teachers’ teaching and students’ learning on autonomous English learning,the regression model of students’ learning can account for the result of students’ AEL in the percentage of 42.6(Adjusted R Square =.426),while the regression model of teachers’ teaching accounts for 26.6% variance of AEL(Adjusted R Square=.266).From the statistics,we can clearly see that students’ learning factors influence AEL more deeply than teachers’ teaching factors in classroom environment.Based on the findings,some suggestions are proposed for English teachers to optimize the present classroom environment to improve students’ autonomous English learning ability.