On The Cultivation Of Autonomous Learning Ability In English At Secondly Vocational School

It is emphasized in the English Syllabus of Secondary Vocational School that English learning should always reflect the students' principal status, bring their initiative into full play, arouse their learning interest, help them develop better study habits, and cultivate their autonomous learning ability. Stress is also laid in the Outline of Basic Education Course Reform that it is essential to foster students' independence and autonomous learning ability so that under the guidance of their teacher they can learn actively and independently. To achieve this objective, carrying out autonomous learning approach is an effective way, that is, adopting the methods in English teaching activities, such as arousing students' motivation, developing their active awareness, can help sharpen students' principal status and as a result, they can explore actively on their own and improve their abilities to use English.The thesis focuses on the following parts. Firstly, the author brings forward the research topic through presenting the essence of the English Syllabus and the Outline, analyzing the situations in current English teaching and collecting research results at home and abroad. Secondly, the thesis summarizes the related language learning theories as the basis for the research, such as the Zone of Proximal Development Theory, Humanistic Theory and Constructive Theory. Then, the author makes an investigation of two English classes having the same level by means of self-designed questionnaire. As far as the students in Secondary Vocational School are concerned, the investigation shows their autonomous learning ability is inadequate as a whole, their active awareness is low, their motivation is not high and their learning approach is not proper. Furthermore, most students have difficulty in setting learning objectives, making plan, managing learning time and gaining the abilities to control and evaluate themselves. Finally, effective teaching methods are discussed in detail, that is, to arouse students' motivation through meta-cognitive strategies to enhance their autonomous learning ability. To illustrate the teaching procedure of autonomous learning, a teaching scheme of one lesson is demonstrated. The thesis analyses from the teaching experiment as well as the investigated results and independent-samples T tests statistical method. Paired Sample Test is used to analyze the results of the experiment of the two classes before and after the new approach with tables of statistics and related explanations. The thesis reaches the conclusion that cultivating students' autonomous learning ability as a teaching approach proves effective, because it can exert students into a full play of gaining knowledge, enhance their self-confidence, arouse their motivation, inspire their thinking and help them form a good study habit, and ultimately, better their learning.