Research On English Learning Experience Of Non-English Majors And Their Autonomous Learning

With increasing globalization, English is increasingly becoming an important international language, and closely relates to people's lives and work. In order to master the language, students must have the capacity for life-long learning. Therefore, how to cultivate learner autonomy becomes a hot topic of education and research at home and abroad. Only learners master the ability to learn independently, will they be able to independently acquire new knowledge and learn new technologies. Therefore, cultivating English learning autonomy is an urgent and important task.Learner autonomy was first brought forth by Henri Holec in 1981. There have been a great number of studies on it ever since the birth of this notion. But they merely focus on the definition of "learner autonomy", the analysis and description of its theoretical bases, and its application strategies. And in the area of language autonomous learning most empirical studies are the cases of applying learning strategies to cultivate learner autonomy in language learning among students. Few investigations of autonomous English learning are conducted from the angle of non-English majors'learning experience. Based on the survey of the theoretical foundation and related empirical study, this thesis researches on the influence of learner's English learning experience on their autonomous language learning; investigates the features of non-English majors'autonomous English learning; finds out the differences among learners with different English learning experiences and different language proficiency.The research was conducted through questionnaires, interviews, diary and observation, and the results were analyzed in quantitative and qualitative methods. The participants are 59 freshmen majoring in Electrical and Information Engineering and Communication Engineering in Taiyuan University of Technology, Shanxi Province. In qualitative part, all the collected data of the questionnaires were processed by software SPSS 17.0 on computer. Paired-sample T-test was used to analyze if there existed a significant change in students' language autonomous learning in the condition of different learning experiences. The qualitative part of the investigation is conducted through the interviews with 11 selected students, their diaries, and the author'observation in two semesters. After 2-semester's observation and investigation, the data is collected and analyzed. These data reveal the effect of participants'language learning experience on their autonomous English learning and their autonomous learning ability in their process of learning.The findings of the study are as follows:First, generally speaking, most non-English majors are not good at autonomous learning. Second, learners'language learning experiences affect their competence of autonomous English learning. The internal and external factors interact in the learners'language learning experiences. If anyone of these factors change, their autonomous learning will be influenced. Third, the differences among learners with different language learning experiences and different language proficiency are obvious. Better learners have better autonomous learning competence; average learners'autonomous learning ability is on ordinary level; less proficient learners'autonomous learning ability is poor and instable.According to the findings of the study, pedagogical implications are made to college teachers as the following:first of all, teachers must know of the learners'learning experiences; second, teachers must plan successful learning experience for the learners; third, teachers must think of learners'development from a long-term point of view; fourth, teacher should assist learners in monitoring and evaluating their own English learning process; and then teachers should help students increase their awareness of the autonomous learning; finally, teachers should endeavor to improve their skills and attitudes as language facilitator, counselor, and resource.In this thesis, the author has initial findings about learner autonomy. There are some limitations in it. First, the sample is not big enough and the data might not be convincing to fully explore the influence of subjects'English learning experience on their autonomous language learning. Second, the subjects are all from the same university, that is, Taiyuan University of Technology, which is a technological institute in nature. Therefore, in further researches, students from other universities of other types should be taken into consideration. Third, the author worked as the observer in this research and lacked a good cooperation with the English teacher. The limitations above show there has plenty of work to do to find out the dynamic nature of learner autonomy. The author hopes that this study can give some enlightenment for other researchers who engage in a foreign language and can motivate them to do further research in this field.