A Study On Developing The Autonomous English Learning Ability Of Vocational And Technical College Students

Since the concept of learner autonomy was put forward by Henri Holec in1981, autonomous learning has become a hot topic in foreign language teaching and research. The English teaching mode gradually shifts from "teacher-centered" to "student-centered", which is helpful to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for English learning and enable students to take responsibility for their own learning. With the rapid development of vocational education, autonomous learning plays an increasingly important role in vocational education, however, many vocational students are lack of the abilities of autonomous English learning and learn in a passive way, therefore, this thesis mainly focuses on the development of vocational and technical college students’ autonomous English learning ability on the basis of the analysis on their current status of autonomous English learning.This thesis first introduces the background of autonomous learning both abroad and at home as well as the factors that impact the students’ autonomous learning. Based on humanism and constructivism theories, a one-year experimental study in Changsha Vocational and Technical College is carried out. The study selects a class from Tourism Management major as experimental class, and a class from Hotel Management major as control class. The experimental instruments are a survey questionnaire and two English proficiency tests. The questionnaire which contains a total of forty-one items, involving the following eight aspects:learning motivation, self-efficacy, learning goals, learning strategy, self-monitoring, time management, emotional control and self-evaluation.In the experiment, both pre-test and post-test are made in experimental class and control class, meanwhile the collected data are analyzed by SPSS18.0. All participants take part in accomplishing the questionnaire and the English proficiency tests before and after the experiment. Through the data analysis of the questionnaire and the first English proficiency test before the experiment, the author finds the overall level of vocational and technical college students’ autonomous learning abilities is at a low. They have some degree of learning motivation but low self-efficiency. Most of them are lack of learning goals and English learning strategies, and haven’t good performances on self-monitoring, time management as well as emotional control. As vocational and technical college students, their English proficiency level still needs to be improved.After a one-year experiment, the same questionnaire and the second English proficiency test are carried out, the results of which reveal that there are significant differences between experimental class and control class. Compared with control class, the autonomous English learning ability as well as the English proficiency level of experimental class have been largely promoted, meanwhile, the following study hypotheses are confirmed:autonomous English learning ability could be improved by training teachers and students’ awareness of autonomous learning, changing the roles of teachers as well as training students’ autonomous learning strategies. Besides, with the development of vocational and technical college students’ autonomous learning abilities, their English proficiency level could also be effectively promoted.