A Study Of Learner Autonomy And Its Enhancement Effect On Motivation

For many years now,"autonomy"in learning has been a topic of widespread discussion in educational field. Accordingly, it is Henry Holec who introduced learner autonomy to the field of second language in his project report to the Council of Europe in 1981. He defines autonomy as the ability to take charge of one's own learning. Motivation is also a widely used psychological term in our daily life and research. When students have motivation to learn, usually they learn positively and actively with purpose or goals, interest in learning. Both learner autonomy and motivation are important factors in influencing learning effects. Many researchers conduct studies on learner autonomy and on motivation. There are also some studies on the correlation between learner autonomy and motivation in SLL (Second Language Learning). However, few of them focus on the effect of learner autonomy on motivation. Thus, this thesis makes an attempt to investigate whether learner autonomy has an enhancement effect on motivation by Chinese non-English majors.The current paper combines motivation and learner autonomy together in order to find some effective and efficient ways of promoting foreign or second language learning. In another way, the paper enriches learner autonomy research. With regard to enhancing motivation, numerous discussions and researches have been conducted. The current paper holds that learner autonomy is a very important factor in influencing motivation. Thus, in this paper, the present researcher will make a combination between learner autonomy and motivation in foreign or second language learning to find some new ways of promoting learners'motivation and learning efficiency.The Introduction presents some background information, the objective and significance and the layout of the thesis from a general perspective. In Chapter 1, theoretical basis of learner autonomy and previous researches on this matter are showed. Chapter 2 analyses studies of motivation in SLL. Based on relevant researches, the present researcher gives the illustration of the correlation between learner autonomy and motivation. These chapters serve as a conceptual framework for the following chapters. Chapter 3 provides methodology of the survey. Five questionnaires are conducted among first-year non-English majors and interviews are added in order to make the results more convincible. The next chapter gives the findings of the investigation and discusses the results. In Chapter 5, the researcher presents some limitations in this investigation and offers several suggestions for future study. Last is the conclusion in which the researcher has summed up what has been done in this thesis.