| College English is the basic compulsory course of the non-English majors. The aimof this course is to require students to master some basic knowledge and skills, to havesome competence in listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation. As a result,students can communicate successfully in the daily activities concerning foreigninteraction, and improve their English communication skills for the future.“Requirementsof College English Curriculum†put forward that cultivating autonomous learning abilityas one of the targets of college English teaching. The arrival of information age provides agood environment for English autonomous learning with its incomparable advantages. Inrecent years, with the improvement of people’s living standard and the development ofnetwork technology, more and more college students begin to own their own laptops andmobile phones. The university teaching buildings, campus and dormitories are all coveredwith wireless network signal, which provides convenience for students to surf on theInternet. However, quite a lot of college students are not able to make use of the powerfulonline learning resources. There exist many problems in the process of using the Internet,for example, some students’ self-control ability is weak, and they spend too much time forleisure and entertainment; some students can’t deal with or select the network informationeffectively, and many students don’t know how to use the Internet for cooperative learning,etc. All these problems may result in the lower autonomous learning efficiency andteaching inefficiency under-utilization of the Internet.Based on this situation, the author tends to research how the undergraduates use theInternet for their English autonomous learning. First of all, about200non-English majorsfrom the Chinese, Mathematics, Physics, and Politics of Shanxi Normal University areparticipated in a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire includes two sections. The firstsection is background information, hoping to know general idea about web-based English autonomous learning. The second section includes20items concerning five aspects ofautonomous learning: choosing materials, formulating goals, monitoring learning process,using learning strategies and evaluating learning efficiency. After the questionnaireinvestigation,182pieces valid questionnaires were collected. And then20undergraduatesare selected among the subjects to take part in interviews. The questions of the intervieware to supplement the items of the questionnaire. Through data analysis made bySPSS.17.0and summary of the notes taken in the process of interview, the results of thestudy are given as follows.First, the coverage rate of the wireless network signal is high, but non-Englishmajors’ use rate of the network is low; most undergraduates cannot use the Internet forEnglish autonomous learning. Second, students have difficulties in using the network forautonomous learning, for example, they don’t know how to choose material from hugedatabase; they seldom use effective learning strategies, and they cannot monitor theirlearning process and evaluate their learning efficiency. Third, most English teacherscannot play positive roles in the process of guiding students to use network for Englishautonomous learning. They still follow the traditional teaching mode and cannot adjust tothe new teaching environment.In the face of these problems, some suggestions are given to help students improvetheir autonomous learning ability. First, the university should establish college Englishdatabase on the campus network, update independent English network laboratory andmake full use of talent advantage. Second, English teachers should improve theirautonomous consciousness, make use of network resources in teaching process and shifttheir roles under new network environment. Third, students must cultivate theirautonomous awareness, train their network skills, cultivate learning strategies andstrengthen online communication and cooperation. |
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