A Comparative Study On Autonomous English Learning Ability Between Military Academy And Local University Non-English Majors

In recent years, the Autonomous Learning (AL) has already become the mainstream of the reform of college English teaching, and put into the "College English Curriculum Requirement"(2007) promulgated by Ministry of Education in China. In our country, AL obtaining strong practical significance is the need of the times and social education. The present study makes a comparative study on the current situation of Autonomous English Learning of116non-English majors from the first semester in grade2011of two different kinds of universities:one is Military Economic Academy (MEA), and the other is Hubei University of Economics (HBUE). In order to make valuable suggestions on the further teaching in the military university the author works for, this research is firstly to give a brief theoretical and practical description of necessity on AEL. Then, through design and analysis of the questionnaire, the study is to make out the weaknesses of the military students concerning Autonomous Learning, and also call for Chinese college teachers’, especially the military teachers’conscious awareness of the importance of Autonomous Learning for the purpose of effectively motivating students.A mixed methodology of both qualitative and quantitative research is employed in the study. During the qualitative research, the theoretical analysis, questionnaire, and interview are employed in a comparative study on Autonomous English Learning ability between military academy and local university non-English majors. While in the quantitative research, all the questionnaires are computed and analyzed statistically in description by SPSS16.0.The findings of this study can be summarized as follows:(1) The Autonomous English Learning situation of non-English majors remains at a low level. The performance of students from local university outweighs those from military.(2) According to the differences, it is dispensable to take measures to improve the Autonomous Learning abilities of the students from military university:raise up the interests and beliefs of students on AEL; make full use of intrinsic motivations to make out the real essence of learning; instructors in the military universities are supposed to enlarge the knowledge in terms of learning strategy in order to provide systematic training for students.In conclusion, Autonomous English Learning should be raised to a high position in accordance with the present situation; it hopes that what has been found in this study can bring some enlightenment to students who want to improve their language learning, and to teachers who want to improve their foreign language teaching. Although limitations, the author makes attempt to probe into the three complicated parts of Autonomous Learning through the single statistical methods, with the help of interviews providing a new way for further study in the field of Autonomous Learning.