An Empirical Study On Self-monitor Factors Of College English Learners Of Autonomous Learning In China

Vivian Cook (2000:3) points out that, by the research of Second Language Acquisition, the teachers are expected to understand the students' contribution to learning, understand how teaching methods and techniques work and the overall goals of language learning. Ellis Rod(1994) presents that there are four categories in the research of SLA, which are the language features of the learner, the external environment of the learner, the internal cognitive mechanism and the individual differences. Ellis Rod (2000:73-78) argues that language aptitude, motivation and learning strategy are the major factors which have great influence on the performance of the language learners. Liu Runqing (1999:184-192) introduces that researchers, since 1970s, have noticed greatly the importance of learners' internal natures, which include intelligence, language aptitude, cognitive style, personality traits, learning strategies, motivation, age and gender. In consideration of the individual difference, the Ministry of Education fosters, in its document published in year 2007 as College English Curriculum Requirements, that "colleges and universities should remold the existing unitary teacher-centered pattern of language teaching by introducing computer-and-classroom-based teaching models. The new model should be built on modern information technology, particularly network technology, so that English teaching and learning will be…geared towards students'individualized and autonomous learning". During the early of 21st century, many colleges and universities in China have practiced the autonomous learning in the teaching reform of College English. And the factors of individual learners of English on scores are becoming more and more of great importance. To the learners, the CE teaching policies, syllabus, teaching mode, autonomous learning network, assessment system and teaching material is non-self-monitor factors, while the self-monitor factors include intelligence, learning motivation, abilities of self-management, learning strategies, age and sex.The paper is based on constructivism learning theory and humanistic learning approach, designing a questionnaire that to investigate 160 students from 6 different universities in Beijing, Henan Province and Hunan Province. According to different CET4 scores the students are divided into high group and low group while male and female students are compared respectively. By SPSS version 16.0, the paper finds the factors of the learners of College English in China of autonomous learning fall into 12 major factors, which are "Affective Strategy", "Attitude", "Communicative Strategy", "Contents", "Curriculum", "Facilities", "Instrumental Motivation", "Integrative Motivation", "Questioning for Clarification", "Self-evaluation", "Self-management" and "Time". Finally, some conclusions are drew that the type of integrative motivation and instrumental motivation affect differently on the performance of CET4, while the instrumental motivation can benefit to the autonomous learning of College English, and absolute autonomy is not practical in China's College English study phrase for non-English majors.The thesis falls into four parts. Part one is the introduction. In it, Second Language Acquisition theories, China College English teaching reform and teaching practice in Hunan Agricultural University are the background of the research. And in it, the author proclaims the purpose of the research is to analyses related factors of autonomous learning and it's implications to College English teaching and learning. At the same time the paper produces three hypotheses, that significant difference can be seen in the correlation between motivations and scores in each group, that learning strategies affect greatly the score of autonomous learning of College English, and that full independent learner autonomy is not suitable for Non-English majors in College English learning in China. The structure of this dissertation is also mentioned in Chapter one. The second part includes Chapter two and Chapter three, which focuses on the theoretical issues. Chapter two place related theories of humanism and constructivism learning theory as main contents. Chapter three is one of the main parts of this dissertation, which discusses in details autonomous learning as the major content. And conclusion is made that absolute free of learner autonomy is not suitable for Non-English majors in College English learning in China. The empirical content is the main component of this dissertation, which contains Chapter four and Chapter five. In this part, the author introduces the subjects, instruments, data collection and analysis, and results and discussions in details. Chapter six is part four, including summary of the findings in the study, teaching implications and limitations of the present study and suggestions for the future research.