The Effect Of Cooperative Learning On Non-English Majors’ Autonomous Belief And Autonomous Behavior In English Learning

College English is one of the most important subjects in university education inChina. The newest requirement for college English teaching requires cultivating students’autonomous learning. Most researchers and educators share the same idea that collegeEnglish teaching and learning should play the role of helping learners develop theirautonomous learning competence to meet the needs of life-long learning. Meanwhile,numbers of studies have shown that cooperative learning has been applied in the practicalteaching and has been treated as a novel and effective method. But most studies do notcombine cooperative learning and autonomous learning. This thesis aims at discoveringthe relationship between the two.86non-English majored freshmen have been selected as subjects, with46in theexperimental class and42in the control class. Questionnaires and interviews are used inthe research to explore how cooperative learning influence the English foreign languagelearner’s autonomy---the autonomous belief and practical autonomous behavior, to findthe differences that the different levels make in the process and to acquire students’attitudes towards cooperative learning after the experiment.The results from the questionnaires present that there were positive correlationbetween cooperative learning and learner’s autonomy---the autonomous belief andautonomous behavior.12students from88subjects in the research were asked to givefurther information in interviews. Many students stated that the cooperative learning withclassmates in and out class were important to them, as being around autonomous,motivated classmates positively impact others autonomy. There were differences amongdifferent levels, specially in the autonomous behavior. And students in the experimentalclass knew more about cooperative learning after the study. The findings in the researchcan give college English teachers some implications. However, there are limitations in thestudy due to the limited research subjects and research time.