Study On The Development Of Learner Autonomy Through Language Teaching

Learner autonomy is described as the ability to control one's learning, and regarded as an ultimate goal in education. In the past few decades, much progress has been made in the exploration of the concept "autonomy" in other countries. China has also witnessed some empirical studies conducted on the cultivation of learner autonomy in English teaching through the training of learning strategies in the past few years, but there is rare study on how to develop learner autonomy in college students through student-centered language teaching. This paper is based on a survey of college students' attitudes to and abilities for autonomous English learning. The findings in the survey will help language teachers develop learner autonomy through language teaching.Defining the term "learner autonomy" and its crucial factorsMany attempts have been made to define the concept "learner autonomy" since the very beginning. However, there is no agreement on its definition. In 1981, Holec (1981:3) defined "autonomy" as 'the ability to take charge of one's learning'. His initial definition has been taken as a starting point in much subsequent work in the area. Dickinson (1987) accepts the definition of autonomy as a situation in which the learner is not only responsible for all the decisions concerned with learning but also for the implementation of those decisions. Later, he defines autonomy as "both an attitude towards learning and a capacity for independent learning". Little (2003) gives us a working definition. According to him, autonomous learners "understand the purpose of their learning program, explicitly accept responsibility for their learning, share in the setting of leaning goals, take initiatives in planning and executing learning activities, and regularly review their learning and evaluate itseffectiveness (cf. Holec 1981, Little 1991)." In other words, the practice of learner autonomy requires insight, a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection, and a readiness to be proactive in self-management and in interaction with others. This working definition captures the challenge of learner autonomy: a holistic view of the learner that requires us to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language learning. To summarize, the development of learner autonomy involves some psychological factors such as learner attitudes, motivation and self-esteem etc.; technical factors such as learning strategies and language awareness; political/institutional factors such as social or cultural influences etc.The investigation into college students' attitudes to and abilitiesfor autonomous language learningLearner autonomy can be regarded as a kind of effective and ideal approach to learning in combination with learner-centered language teaching. The following questions need to be answered if more effective language learning is to be obtained in student-centered classroom: What is the current state of college students' autonomous language learning? What attitudes do they hold towards autonomous language learning? What measures can we take to promote autonomous language learning in FL teaching? These questions are the focus of my study in this paper.107 students on the Nanling campus of Jilin University were chosen at random for the research, among whom 51 were freshmen and 56 were sophomores in the 2003-2004 academic year. All the subjects are using New College English as their textbooks. In the preface of New College English, complied by Zhejiang University, the writers claim that the aim of the textbook is to develop learners' five basic language skills of listening, reading, speaking, writing, and translating for effective language use and communication. Learner-centered and interactive model approaches are advocated, teacher's role as a facilitator is emphasized when we usethis textbook.The survey was made through two questionnaires, one for the students' attitudes towards learner autonomy and the other for the students' abilities for autonomous English learning. It is found that most college stud...