An Empirical Study Of College English Teacher Beliefs About Learner Autonomy

Two interrelated aspects have undergone significant shifts within the field of language teaching over the last two decades: classroom centeredness and language teaching purpose. More weight is put on learners rather than on teachers or language itself; the purpose of language teaching is no longer regarded as enabling learners to acquire a body of language knowledge. Learner autonomy (LA) becomes one of the most important goals for language education in a society advocating learning for life.Research carried out over the last two decades justifies reasonable confidence in and optimism about LA. LA is not totally novice or mysterious, as genuinely successful language learners are actually autonomous learners, but it is impinging on every aspect of language learning/teaching theory and practice, in all parts of the world. It is believed that children's inborn autonomy will not necessarily develop into LA, as an unsupportive setting of learning and teaching will inhibit and harm their autonomous ability. The present study aims to study college English teacher beliefs about LA and their classroom practice, which is crystallized into three research questions on 1) college English teacher beliefs about LA, 2) cross group belief differences amongst the subjects, 3) the relationship between teacher beliefs about LA and their classroom practice. The subjects in the study are 85 college English teachers from HUST (Huazhong University of Science and Technology) and CUG (China University of Geosciences), who were invited to answer a 52-item questionnaire composed of two parts. The first part investigates teacher beliefs about LA, and the second teachers' classroom practice. The results indicate that some beliefs are to the taste of promoting LA, such as realizing learner responsibility and the existence of obstacles against LA, while some others do not enable the teachers to act accordingly, for example, they are less aware of teacher responsibility and learners' individual differences. Language teachers working for 4-6 years have similar beliefs to those held by teachers working for 1-3 years and for more than 7 years, while the last two groups of teachers have significantly different beliefs. The results imply that teachers' belief change is a slow and gradual process, in which 4-6 years is the transitional period when language teachers regulate and form their beliefs. In addition, belief change is a matter of degree, that is, some factors change, and others remain stable. Significant correlations exist between teacher beliefs about LA and their classroom practice, but only their beliefs about the learning pattern and about the conformity in teaching bear cause-effect relationship with classroom practice. Based on the findings, it is suggestible that promoting LA be connected with promoting teacher autonomy and a flexible language-learning scheme be constructed in the near future if the learning for life philosophy is to become a reality.