Problems And Strategies Of Web-based Autonomous Learning Of English Major

In March,2000, the Ministry of Education of China issued English Syllabus for CollegeEnglish Major which was revised by the English Group of College Foreign LanguageTeaching Steering Committee. English Syllabus for College English Major pointed out thatthe rapid development of science and technology and the advent of the information eraprovide the condition and guarantee for the modernization of education means, and they alsosupply abundant resources for English teaching. We need to actively adopt the modern,diversified and comprehensive teaching model, on the basis of making full use of the presentelectronic education equipments to actively explore and develop the computer-assistedteaching. If the condition is available, the school should build up a computer network system,CD data center, and multimedia self-instructional room, and create the condition for updatingthe teaching content, improving the teaching efficiency, and training students’ effectivelearning methods.With the deepening and popularization of the web-based foreign language learning, theautonomous learning has increasingly become an important learning model, and the Internetprovides a good platform to support the autonomous learning. It makes the learning moreeffective and more convenient. In July,2007, the College English Curriculum Requirements(shorted as the Requirement) was officially revised and published by the Ministry ofEducation of China officially. The Requirement explicitly pointed out that the college Englishteaching should enhance students’ capability of autonomous learning. Therefore theuniversities and colleges should adopt the computer-based and classroom English teachingmodel, and make the development of English teaching and learning in the direction ofindividualized and autonomous learning.The Internet provides a good support for the autonomous learning, so the students havemore learning initiative. They can choose the learning content, the time and the placeaccording to their own individual learning style. However, the web-based autonomouslearning needs a high degree of requirement of the learning environment and the students’capability of autonomous learning. In China, the attitude of teaching and learning of teachersand students has been affected by the traditional teacher-centered, teaching-centered, andtextbook-centered teaching philosophy for a long time. At present, the web-based foreignlanguage learning has become a rather popular learning model. However, due to lack ofsystematic and scientific training, and during the learning process the students cannot get thehelp and guide of teachers in time. Meanwhile, there’s no the effective evaluation measuringthe effects of students’ autonomous learning. Usually the students can only learn according to their own learning experience, which is in fact causing the students to randomly experienceautonomous learning.The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the problems and strategies of theweb-based autonomous learning for English major students. This research chose the studentsfrom Hebei Teachers’ College for Nationalities as the subjects, and they are English majorundergraduates of Foreign Language Department, Grade three. In this research, the authoradopted the literature review, the questionnaire, the interview and the field observation as theresearch instruments. Then the author collected the quantitative data and the qualitative datefrom theses research instruments, and then analyzed the collected data.This research mainly involved three elements of the web-based English autonomouslearning process:1) The present hardware and software environment support for the web-based Englishautonomous learning.2) The roles of English major students in the web-based English autonomous learning.3) The roles of English teachers in the web-based English autonomous learning ofEnglish major students.According to the analysis of the collected data related to the three elements of web-basedautonomous learning, the author suggested the relevant strategies for the web-base Englishautonomous learning, to optimize English major students’ capability of web-based Englishautonomous learning.