Process Model Of Autonomous Language Learning In EFL Classroom Setting

Autonomous language learning has been a heated topic of research within the field of applied linguistics in Western countries since the 1970s, and over the last two decades, autonomy has taken on a growing importance in the field of language education around the world. This is born out by an increasing number of papers, books and conference presentations on this topic. There have been a number of key papers in leading language and linguistics journals dealing with self-access and autonomy; and AILA(Association of International Applied Linguistics) has an annual meeting on autonomy in language learning; in different parts of the world, there have also been different focuses in the way this concept has been implemented in actual language teaching and learning.Although autonomous language learning has greatly developed both on theory and practice, in literature, a lot of researchers just pay their attention to the aspects of autonomous language learning, such as the definition of autonomy, its theoretical basis, the cultural compatibility of autonomous language learning, the roles of the teacher and the means of application, and few of them view it from the perspective of process. What's more, the process of autonomous learning is usually supposed to be simply a series of activities including analyzing needs, setting goals, self-motivating during the process and self-evaluating outcomes. Is it that simple for autonomous language learning in EFL classroom setting? And does autonomous language learning process have anything different from general autonomous learning process? In this thesis we make a study of autonomous language learning from the perspective of process, and based on the previous study of autonomous learning process, we try to incorporate a psychological process and an interdependence process into autonomous language learning process in EFL classroom setting.This thesis mainly studies the following issues:1. Autonomous language learning is a psychological construct. Both teachers and learners' strong awareness of the importance of autonomous language learning serve as a prerequisite for the actual implementation of autonomous language learning.2. It is quite necessary to incorporate psychological process and interdependence process to2. It is quite necessary to incorporate psychological process and interdependence process to the whole process of autonomous language learning. Therefore, a new process model, which is composed of psychological process, action process and interdependence process, emerges. Psychological process is important for learners in EFL context and the interdependence process also has special meaning for language learning.3. One of the contributions of this study is that the process model provides us with a new perspective of research and with a holistic view of autonomous language learning, and another important contribution is its implication of a change or improvement of the teachers' pedagogical ideology and methodology.