A Research On The Cultivation Of Autonomous English Learning Ability In Multi-media-and-network-based Instruction Contexts

Traditional foreign language teaching research places its focus on how to teach. With the development of research on second language acquisition, people have come to realize the fact that it is the language learner that determines his/her learning efficiency. As a result, the focus of foreign language research has been shifted from the teacher to the language learner. Modern foreign language learning theories emphasize the decisive effect of autonomous learning of language learners. Traditional methods and models of English teaching play a negative role on students, which lead to their strong dependence on the teacher and weak awareness of learner autonomy. Thus, the cultivation of students' autonomous learning ability, the goals of both College English Curriculum Reform and College English Teaching, become a hot issue in foreign language teaching circle. With the reform of foreign language teaching in China and the development of modern education technology, multi-media-and-network-based teaching model has been being widely applied in English teaching. Therefore, it is of great significance to probe into strategies as to how to cultivate learner autonomy in English teaching in multi-media-and-network-based instruction contexts. Few people, however, have done much on this issue. Thus, this issue becomes the main concern in this paper.This thesis first surveys what have been achieved by psychologists and language researchers in the study of autonomous learning, explores the nature, the categories, the stage and level of autonomous learning, discusses the nature of autonomous English learning, its theoretical bases and the access to autonomous learning ability training in English teaching. Then, the author points out the possible causes of students' low level of autonomous English learning ability and the necessity of promoting such an ability. With the help of questionnaires, the author of this thesis has obtained the information that the students do have a poor autonomous English learning ability. The results from questionnaires and English testing show that there is a positive correlation between the degree of students' autonomous learning ability and their scores. From the results analyzed by SPSS, we find out some basic causes leading to students' poor ability in this respect, which include poor motivation of English learning, poor goals of study, poor learning strategies and low level of meta-cognition. Four teaching strategies and workable proposals for promoting autonomous learning ability are tried and tested, which eventually prove helpful.The thesis finally focuses on an experiment, which was made on some students to promote their autonomous learning ability. The result of the experiment shows that the four teaching strategies do well, which further proves to be workable through Independence-Sample T Test. However, other effective teaching methods and strategies should be probed into to promote such an ability of the students. To promote the autonomous English learning ability among students of low proficiency is also an important issue to be further studied.