Learner Autonomy Through Formative Assessment In English Teaching In Senior School

With the research and development of teaching methodologies, many new teaching theories have been gradually applied into classroom teaching and learning. Especially, learner autonomy has been becoming one of the ultimate goal for learners. Learner autonomy is also called self-directed learning or independent learning, which means that learners carry out their own learning on their own by setting the learning goals, making out learning plans, planning the learning contents, monitoring and evaluating the process of their learning by themselves. Many previous studies (Gardner and L.Miller 2002) have identified that the higher efficiency of language learning can be achieved by the students with the ability of learner autonomy than the students lack of learner autonomy. So, learner autonomy is being paid more attention to in classroom instruction in the field of education all over the world.The paper first gave a brief review of relevant theories related to learner autonomy. Some dominant educational philosophies, which learner autonomy stemmed from, are constructivism and humanism. Constructivism argues that knowledge can't be taught but only learned and learning how to learn is the key to transferring what was learned from one situation to another, while humanism argues that students can learn best when they learn what they want and need to know and that knowing how to learn is more important than acquiring a lot of knowledge. So, what they have in common can be considered as the characteristics of learner autonomy, that is, learners' ability of taking on their learning responsibility...