A Survey On The Autonomous English Learning Competence Of Non-English Majors

Eversince the early 70s, there has been a steady interest in changing the focus of foreign language teaching from teacher-centeredness to learner-centeredness. It is generally acknowledged that learners themselves should play an active role and take more responsibility in mastering a foreign language to improve learning efficiency. Consequently, learner autonomy (LA), which refers to the willingness for and the ability of taking charge of one's own learning, has been a "buzzword" in foreign language teaching.A large body of research concerning LA has been carried out in the western countries, focusing not only on the rational of learner autonomy from pedagogical and philosophical point of view, but also on the means of facilitating the development of learner autonomy. In recent years, the study of LA has also received increasing attention from teachers and researchers in China, but the relevant studies to date in China either stay on pure theoretical framework, or belong to empirical research that compares results between the control group and the experimental group. So far there are few studies aiming to investigate the students' autonomous English learning situation and to evaluate the level of their autonomous English learning competence. With an attempt to fill up such a research gap, this study sets out to examine the level of non-English majors' autonomous English learning competence, to identify students' autonomous problems, and to find out possible strategies to improve autonomous English learning competence in the current Chinese context.90 second-year non-English majors in Shandong University participated in this study. All of them were required to complete the questionnaire adapted from Wen (1995), Broady (1996) and Littlewood (1999). The questionnaire is composed of 30 items on a five-point Likert Scale, which covers five areas: identifying what has been taught; formulating the learning objectives; selecting and implementing appropriate learning strategies (LS); monitoring the use of learning strategies; monitoring and evaluating the learning. The choices they made were transformed into frequencies, means and standard deviations by SPSS 11.5 for windows program, and all the results were presented in tables. In order to get more in-depth information about students'autonomous problems, informal interviews were conducted among 12 students after the questionnaire.Results from the study show that the overall degree of non-English majors' autonomous English learning stays at a low level. They are in lack of ability to set practical learning goals, to carry out the plan, to create opportunities to practice English, to apply appropriate learning strategies and to measure learning outcomes. The formation of such a situation is a complex matter. Among the factors affecting LA, students' attitude towards and motivation for LA, the traditional education system and testing system, students' lack of metacognitive knowledge and strategies, and self-esteem were found to be important. Just because of the influence of the above factors, most non-English majors turn out to be passive, dependent and less autonomous in English learning.Based on all the investigation and analyses, some tentative suggestions are provided, which might be beneficial for the promotion of LA among Chinese students. In this thesis teachers are suggested to share their control over the language classrooms with their students and constructing an environment, which can allow learners to exercise increasing responsibility for their own learning. In the meantime, Students are encouraged to undergo a considerable transformation of their beliefs about language and their roles as a learner so as to enable themselves to undertake autonomous learning effectively. In addition, learning strategy training, especially metacognitive strategy training incorporated into language teaching is an effective way to enhance students' autonomy in language learning.In sum, those factors affecting Chinese students' autonomous competence deserve the concerted endeavors of all Chinese foreign language teachers. To cultivate and improve students' autonomy in the target language is important and necessary, which is the ability that every learner needs for their lifelong learning.