A Study Of English Majors' Autonomous Learning Competence

Since Holec offered his definition of autonomy, the concept of autonomous learning competence has been attracting more and more attention in the field of second language teaching and learning. However, the previous studies have achieved various findings over the last two decades. Some researchers find that learners'achievements have positive correlation with the autonomous learning competence, while others find that there is not any significant correlation between them.This study aims to explore Chinese English majors'autonomous learning competence. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted to investigate the degree of autonomous learning competence of English majors and its relationship with TEM-4 achievements. The differences of using autonomous strategies in learning listening, reading and writing between high and low achievement students are also discovered in the present study.The research is carried out with multiple methods including descriptive analysis, independent samples t-test analysis and Pearson correlation analysis. 153 English majors from the School of Foreign Languages of Qingdao University of Science and Technology participated in this research. The two questionnaires are composed of 47 items on a five-point Likert Scale, which aims to investigate the students'autonomous learning competence. SPSS 13.0 is used to carry out the data analysis. The analysis procedures are as follows: The descriptive analysis is employed to investigate the degree of autonomous learning competence of English majors while the correlation analysis is used to explore the relationship between autonomous learning competence and their TEM-4 scores. Independent-samples t-test aims to see how the autonomous learning competence differs between the high-achievement group and low-achievement group students. Further research is conducted to discover how it differs in learning listening, reading and writing skills between high-achievement group and low-achievement group.The statistical results show that the degree of autonomy competence of English majors is on the whole at a medium level. Autonomy competence is not significantly correlated with TEM-4 scores but they are positively correlated in the low-achievement group. In learning different language skills, high-achievement students and low-achievement students do not have any significant difference, but high-achievement students positively do better in using autonomous learning strategies than low-achievement students. Low-achievement students show their defect in never making a plan and paying too much attention to the techniques and speed.This research has potentially important implications for fostering students'autonomous learning competence. Teachers should help students to improve their autonomy competence, especially the low-achievement students. In addition, learners themselves should pay attention to learner autonomy, and develop their autonomous learning competence gradually.