A Research On Affective Factors In Vocational College Students’ Autonomous English Learning

The goal of vocational college (VC below) education is to develop practical talents for the society. The purpose of English teaching in VC is to develop students’ application abilities of English. The development of students’application abilities of English depends on students’ autonomous English learning. Affective factors (in this paper, it refers to self-efficacy, attitude, motivation and anxiety) are important components of autonomous language learning, it may impede or facilitate learner’s autonomous learning.Successful autonomous language learners characterize as having positive attitude, strong and deep motivation, high self-efficacy and low anxiety. In VC English teaching practice, we find that many VC students are in a negative affective state, and they lack autonomous learning ability. However, studies concerning VC students’ affective factors in their autonomous English learning in China are few, there is no scientific and quantitative research on VC students’comprehensive affective factors so far.The aim of this research is to disclose the real situation of VC student’s affective factors in their autonomous English learning. Questionnaires were distributed to510students in5vocational colleges and260students in2comprehensive universities (CU below) in Hangzhou, the results were contrasted and analyzed by SPSS software (Statistical Package for the Social Science). The data proved that the four affective factors positively correlated with VC students’autonomous learning strategy using. The data also showed that in comparison with CU students, VC students had more negative attitude, less deep motivation and lower self-efficacy, but both of them had the same moderate anxiety level. Then, this paper analyzed and discussed the possible reasons behind this phenomenon, and put forward eleven suggestions such as using cooperative learning method to organize English teaching, giving students chances to experience success and so on in order to foster VC students’positive affective factors in their autonomous English learning.The thesis is composed of7chapters. Chapter1explains the necessity and significance of the research, the aims and structure of the thesis. Chapter2sets forth the theoretical bases of the thesis. Chapter3explains the concepts of autonomous learning and affective factors, and discusses the relationship between them. Chapter4introduces the objectives, participants, instruments and procedure of the research. Chapter5analyzes and discusses the data of the research result. Chapter6puts forward11suggestions to foster VC students’ positive affective factors in autonomous English learning. Chapter7makes a conclusion to the whole study with the limitations proposed for further research and consideration.