Readiness For Learner Autonomy

Over the last two decades, the concept of learner autonomy has gained a growing profile in the field of EFL in the West. However, there is relatively less formal academic discussion about learner autonomy in China. What's more, The Ministry of Education issued a new document in 2003 setting new curriculum requirements on College English. It highlights the importance of enhancing learner autonomy and improving cultural knowledge in the learners with the help of multimedia to adapt themselves to the needs of our economic development and international communications. Thus it implies that the investigation of learner autonomy is not only necessary, but also urgent.Since "the research result of learner beliefs can be used as a reference in judging the effects of a certain language policy or a training program, because these results can suggest learners' acceptance of the education reform". This paper aims to find out whether the college students are ready for the learner autonomy by investigating learner beliefs and whether multimedia network class is effective in fostering learner autonomy by comparing learner beliefs between students trained in traditional classes and multimedia network classes.The subjects who participated in this research were 224 college students from three universities, namely Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beihang University and Beijing Institute of Technology. The paper used 2 questionnaires and an interview to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. After a detailed analysis of these data with the help of SPSS and Excel, we get the following conclusions: at present, most college English learners have some knowledge of learner autonomy and they are psychologically prepared for learner autonomy. For those already trained in multimedia network classes, on the one hand, they are motivated by the new teaching mode, and have developed certain degree of learner autonomy, while on the other hand, more students trained in multimedia network course than those trained in traditional class think that learning autonomy equals to studying by oneself alone, whose answers may be found in some teachers' misinterpretation of the college English reform.These findings imply that promoting learner autonomy does not necessarily mean a complete rejection of teacher authority. We would like to highlight the importance of cooperation. And when we encourage the universities to adopt multimedia network teaching mode, we can not neglect a danger here, that the use of technology will exacerbate the current gulf in education between the haves and the have-nots.Whether or not our interpretation of our findings is correct, the value for theoretically exploring learners' beliefs about language learning is uncontroversial. We hope that the main contribution of our study to the collective effort at investigating learners' beliefs about language learning is to shed a little light on the college English reform.