A Survey Of Learner Autonomy Of Chinese English Learners

For a long time, the relationship between teachers and students has been unbalanced. It is featured by teachers' dominance and control in classroom and students' passive acceptance of whatever teachers say and do to them. But with the development of educational psychology going deeper into the individual being, such an unbalanced relationship between teachers and students has received more and more questioning and critics. And the latter half of the twentieth century has witnessed a marked shift of attention from teaching to learning in the field of foreign language education. Inherent in the shift of focus, these is a recent tendency to emphasize autonomous learning in which students are supposed to take more responsibilities in foreign language classrooms. As such, a hot argument and research about autonomy in language learning has emerged. In the study, the researcher intends to explore the learners' view of language learning and tries to understand learners' language awareness and psychological readiness towards learner autonomy. Besides, an exploration on the knowledge needed to develop autonomy is made. And possible ways to develop autonomy in Chinese context are put forward.The thesis is composed of four chapters with an introduction at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. Introduction gives a blueprint of the whole thesis. Chapter one presents an exploration of the concepts and theories related to autonomy. Firstly autonomy is defined as the extent to which learners demonstrate the ability to use a set of tactics taking control of their learning. The tactics include setting goals, choosing materials and tasks, planning practice opportunities and monitoring and evaluating progress. Learners display these tactics to varying degrees. The beliefs and attitudes learners hold have a profound influence on their learning behaviors, so this variability is accounted for, in part, by differences in learner beliefs about language learning. The thesis argues, therefore, that before interventions aimed at fostering autonomy are implemented, it is necessary to gauge learners' readiness for the changes in beliefs and behaviors which autonomy implies. Secondly, it outlines thecorrespondence between three versions of autonomy (technical, psychological, political) and three approaches to issues of knowledge and learning (positivism, constructivism and critical theory), which serves as the theoretical foundation for the exploration of learner autonomy. Lastly, it seeks to the theoretical rationale of the factors concerned with learner beliefs, including motivation theory, locus of control, attribution theory, and self-efficacy theory. All these serve as a prelude for the coming profound exploration.And then it comes to the second chapter—an exploration of learner's readiness towards autonomy of English learners, in which data were collected in the form of questionnaire. The participants were 150 sophomores from the School of Geodesy and Geometries, the school of Politics & Public Administration, and Business School respectively in Wu Han University. The questionnaire sought primarily to the beliefs about variables implicated in successful SLA that are considered important in learner autonomy. After the analysis to the data we come to know that most of the subjects are inclined to take responsibility for their learning. The teacher's role as an authority figure in classroom is at odds with those opinions language learners held by proponents of autonomous learning. The view of teachers as counselor, facilitator and mediator seems to be more consonant with beliefs about how autonomy could be fostered. It is encouraging that most of the learners have strong sense of language awareness, that is, the beliefs about the nature of language learning held by SLA searchers are also held by the learners. In addition, the strategies singled out for investigation in the questionnaire represent important knowledge and behavior for learners who wish to assume responsibility for aspects of their language learning. However, the two strategies—about how to check one's own work and how to measure one's own progress, were the most limited in percentage of agreement among all the strategies, which related to the key metacognitive strategies in language learning: monitoring and evaluating. Therefore, teachers need to allocate time and attention to raise awareness of monitoring and evaluating strategies, as well as to provide learners with opportunities to practice using these metacognitive strategies. The subjects' inability to use strategies for monitoring and evaluating learning waslinked to a lack of confidence in certain areas, identified in the items about self-efficacy. Generally speaking, most of the learners have the awareness to take responsibility for their learning and intend to take control of their learning. However, to a certain extent, it still needs external support and guidance.Chapter three presents some basic knowledge needed for developing learner autonomy. Firstly, it points out that autonomy may be recognized in a variety of forms but it is important that we are able to identify it in the context of our research and Practice. Secondly, it makes it clear that measurement of autonomy is problematic, however, we still need to search for ways to judge whether we have been successful. Thirdly, autonomy cannot be pursued in a vacuum, the exercise of which has a social context in which the individual must accept interdependence, recognizing that one can not receive benefits from a social structure without contributing to it and the personal rights have a corollary social responsibility. Even with independence as the goal there is an unavoidable dependence at one level on authorities for information and guidance. Interdependence is therefore an essential component of autonomy in action. Lastly, it is concerned with the practice to the development of autonomy. Autonomy has come to be closely identified with certain practice, which is mainly based on teachers, learners and classroom. These discussions are expected to establish the basis for exploring the specific ways to develop autonomy.Then the thesis comes to chapter four, which is devoted to the discussion of effective ways to develop autonomy among EFL learners. It argues that strategy training can help improve learner autonomy. The major findings of the study indicate that monitoring and evaluating strategies are the most limited in the percentage of agreement among the autonomy-favoring strategies, so it proposes to develop learner autonomy by formative assessment. Moreover, cooperative learning is also an effective way to develop learner autonomy because it is more learner-centered and encourages student participation in English class. Anon—threatening and democratic organization and management of a class can contribute to the creation of a classroom environment that promotes autonomous learning, in which students and teachers can share the responsibility in the control of their environments and participants can beencouraged to analyze, to plan and to evaluate their learning. It would certainly help to improve student opportunities for language use, promote positive attitudes towards language learning and make learners actively involved in the language learning process. Of course, there are some limitations of this study and any suggestions and critics are welcome. Anyway, it is hoped that the study will benefit EFL educators in terms of developing learner autonomy, thus sparking more interest in research on this aspect.