An Investigation Of The College English Teaching In Web-based Computer-assisted Language Learning

Recent years, there are numerous studies concerning the advantages of using CALL. Yet, few are found to investigate the relationship between autonomous learning capacity and motivation in Chinese web-based CALL context. However, autonomous learning capacity and motivation are two decisive factors in the students'success with web-based CALL. Therefore, it would be interesting and critically important to investigate the autonomous learning capacity and motivation of the Chinese college students so as to find the problems in the present web-based CALL context. It is also important to examine the relationship between the two critical factors and make it as the guide to find effective ways for learning and teaching college English in the web-based CALL context.This study mainly addressed the following research questions: (1) How is the Chinese EFL college students'autonomous learning capacity with the web-based CALL approach? (2) How is the Chinese EFL college students'learning motivation towards their English study, in particular, with the web-based CALL approach? (3) What is the relationship between the students'autonomous learning capacity and classroom motivation with the web-based CALL approach? The participants of the study were 203 college EFL undergraduates from five universities in Chongqing, i.e. Chongqing University of Technology, Southwest University, Chongqing University, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing University of Science and Technology. The data were analyzed by SPSS 15.0.The results of the current study showed that the students possessed relatively high autonomous learning capacity but poor in using learning strategies. The students possessed medium motivation towards web-based CALL English learning but they lacked the initiative to learn. They were just passive listeners and had no confidence in English study. Students'autonomous learning capacity and students'motivation were strongly correlated. Among the five aspects of autonomous learning capacity, monitoring and evaluating the English learning process had the highest correlation with the overall motivation as well as overall autonomous learning capacity. As for the three aspects of motivation, motivation inside class, motivation outside class, motivation towards web-based CALL, the motivation inside class was highly correlated with the overall motivation and overall autonomous learning capacity. This showed that the traditional learning process was still the dominant power in the Chinese College English classroom. Web-based CALL couldn't replace the traditional teaching approach at the present stage, and the teacher would need to change their roles to give students more guidance on strategy use and inspire their intrinsic motivation and confidence to learn English under the new learning environment.