An Experimental Study On Cultivating Vocational College Students’ English Autonomous Learning Ability In Network Environment

The modern education technology has developed a lot and the network teaching technology has been widely used for the English language learning and teaching in our country nowadays. The researchers in foreign language teaching field in our country put forward many new requirements on the English curriculum reform according to the development of the society in recent years. The Basic Requirements of Vocational College English Course(Trial) was issued by the Ministry of Education in China in October 2000. The basic requirements present new teaching goals for practical English, that is, college English teachers must foster high quality professional talents for the society, especially to train students’ language using ability and language learning ability. English curriculum should not only make a good language foundation, but also stress on cultivating language skills in practical use, especially the abilities to deal with the daily and foreign-related business in English. The modern teaching means such as computer multimedia and network technology should be introduced and used in the language teaching and learning process, and the conditions of English teaching should be improved too. As the president of Language Department of Cambridge University, Trim(1988:3) ever pointed out, “No school, or even university, can provide its pupils with all the knowledge and the skills they will need in their active adult lives. It is more important for a young person to understand about himself or herself, an awareness of the environment and its workings, and to have learned how to think and how to learn.”The English language teaching in network environment combines the modern multimedia applications with network-support technology creates an ideal learning environment for learners. This teaching model also has many new characteristics, such as: the individualized teaching style, the diversification of learning method and the automation of English learning environment. So studies on training higher vocational students’ English autonomous learning ability in network environment show very important significance.The purpose of this paper is to train higher vocational college students’ English autonomous learning ability by using the teaching mode in network environment on the basis of autonomous learning theories. On the basis of the basic autonomous learning theories, the author carries on a survey and analyzes the current status of higher vocational collage students’ autonomous learning ability in English, and then explores and summarizes five strategies used for cultivating students’ autonomous learning ability in English languages learning. The author carries out a teaching experiment for one semester. The traditional teaching method is used in the controlled class and the teaching mode in network environment is used in the experimental class, and the teacher pays attention to use teaching strategies in the experimental class to train students’ autonomous learning. The author wants to study that whether students’ autonomous learning ability can be improved in network environment by comparing the data of students’ questionnaire survey and the scores of English examination before and after the experiment in the two classes and the summary of the interviews that has been done in the experimental class at the end of the semester. The experimental results show that the higher vocational English teaching mode in network environment can improve students’ English autonomous learning ability and help students improve their English achievement.