A Case Study On Non-English Majors' Autonomous Learning In Web-based Environment

At present, the number of faculty members and facilities do not keep pace with the expansion of enrollment in the college. Big-class teaching is not a rare scene on the campus. Under this circumstance, educators and researchers set their eyes on autonomous learning, making a wish that it may guarantee the quality of college students.The spring-up of learner autonomy benefits from the development of three major schools of educational psychology---Humanism, Cognitive Theory and Constructivism. These theories emphasize that education should take learners as the center and learners are endowed with the capability to take control of their learning. From then on, the concept of learner autonomy came into being and developed well under these underlying theories, which provides the theoretical guidance for the promotion of autonomous learning in foreign language teaching. In the recent years, the speedy development of computer technology broadens the methodology of English teaching and learning. The web, boasting of many advantages, creates an excellent learning environment, which provides technological methods for language learning. The nature of web-based learning is also conductive to learner autonomy, which can also be called the actualization of learner autonomy. It enables learners to improve their ability and confidence to access, analyze and interpret information.Up until now, little has been done concerning the empirical study on the feasibility of developing autonomous learning in web environment carried out by non-English majors as an extra-curriculum activity and the correlation between learners'performance and web-based autonomous learning.Consequently, an investigation is conducted in this paper to explore the attitudes and beliefs by Chinese non-English majors towards web-based autonomous learning, the efficiency of web-based learning in achieving autonomy and the correlation between students'performance and web-based autonomous learning. It intends to reveal the underlying reasons and to find the possible and feasible solutions to this problem. To make the investigation more scientific and revealing, quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted. 188 freshmen in four classes from College of Physics and Electronics are chosen as the subjects of the quantitative study. After one-semester web-based autonomous learning experience, according to their scores, 9 students are chosen to be the subjects of the qualitative study. The results are as follows: 1) Non-English majors have come into the realization of learner autonomy and show willingness in taking control of their learning. 2) They hold positive beliefs and attitudes towards the instrumental function of web learning. 3) They are lacking in metacognitive strategies. 4) They show negative beliefs and attitudes towards assessing mechanism of the internet. 5) They achieve the autonomy regarding to goal-setting, independent-action and evaluating to varied degrees, with evaluating less satisfying. 6) Though learners learning English through web resources is in the initial stage, they show good performance in class. 7) There is no significant correlation between learners'performance in the final examination and web-based autonomous learning. The possible solutions are offered including teachers'intervention in web-based autonomous learning and learners'training in autonomous learning strategies and computer skills.All the efforts made above will push forward the integration of web-based autonomous learning into foreign language teaching. It provides evidence for teachers to plan and implement their teaching in online settings. What's more, it will be beneficial for students to achieve autonomy in web-based learning environment. The implementation of web-based autonomous learning is helpful in solving the problem arising from a continuous expansion of college enrollment and guaranteeing the quality of college students.