Cultivating Non-English Majors' Learner Autonomy In Language Learning

Since the publication of Henri Holec's Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in 1981, the concept of "learner-centered" has been set up. How to cultivate learner autonomy becomes the commonsense of educators and researchers. 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 has become a main concern in foreign language teaching. As a result, successive observations and insights have been obtained in diverse researches and studies of learner autonomy. This thesis aims to find out possible ways to improve non-English majors' learner autonomy in language learning through examining the level of their autonomous learning competence and their autonomous problems.Scholars have held different views on the concept of autonomy over the past two decades. Many agree that autonomy is the ability to take charge of one's own learning. This thesis proposes that autonomy entails learner's willingness and ability to move from teacher-dependence to teacher-independence. Willingness and ability are the two components of autonomy. Willingness comes from the learners' motivation and confidence to take responsibility for their own learning, while ability can be acquired on the basis of knowledge about the learning tasks and the necessary strategies for completing these tasks. Different learners will manifest different learning attitudes, motivation and metacognitive knowledge in their English learning. Cultivating learner autonomy in language learning should take into full consideration learners' attitudes, motivation and metacognitive knowledge which serve as three important factors for learner autonomy. Humanism, constructivism and cognitivism, the theoretical support of autonomy, also imply that autonomy does not mean learning in isolation or learning without teachers and other learners. Rather, autonomy entails the interaction with teachers and with other learners. Therefore, autonomous learners should have positive attitudes towards their learning, strong motivation and enough confidence to take responsibility for their own learning and should strengthen their ability in doing so with the guidance of teachers.On the basis of the concept, factors and theoretical support of learner autonomy, a survey is carried out both quantitatively and qualitatively in order to get a general picture of non-English majors' autonomous learning competence and find their autonomous learning problems,. The subjects of the survey come from 105 students of non-English majors the author is presently teaching in Chongqing University of Science and Technology. All of them are required to complete the questionnaire which consists of 27 statements and mainly covers four aspects: roles of teachers and learners in the learning progress; learning objectives; attitudes and motivation towards learner autonomy; metacognitive knowledge and strategies. In order to get more in-depth information about students' autonomous problems, an informal interview is conducted among 63 students after the questionnaire. The findings from the survey indicate that the overall degree of non-English majors' autonomous learning stays at a low level. The learners desire to manage their own learning, but most of them have strong dependence on the teacher. They can not set practical learning goals. They lack proper motivation and attitudes and their metacognitive knowledge is too limited to allow them to learn independently.Therefore, on the base of above survey and analysis, some tentative suggestions are provided, which may be beneficial for the promotion of non-English majors' learner autonomy in language learning. This thesis argues that teachers and learners should reconsider their roles in learning progress. Teachers should act as facilitators, counselors and resource rather than classroom controllers, learners should take responsibility for their own learning and strengthen their ability to do so. In the meanwhile, teachers should cultivate learners' awareness of autonomous learning and train their metacognitive strategies to take responsibility for their learning. In addition, setting up self-access centers and making use of the internet are also crucial approaches to cultivate learner autonomy, which will provide learners with better opportunities to learn independently. Finally, providing autonomy-supportive environment will contribute to enhancing learners' motivation and confidence in their English learning.