A Survey Of College ESP Learner Autonomy And Its Enlightenment On English Teaching

McDevitt (1997) raised the idea that the end product of education is an independent learner and that cultivating a learner's independence or autonomy should be regarded as the ultimate goal that teachers or educators try to pursue. Up till the present days, College English teaching has experienced a series of reforms: from the teaching materials and teaching mode to the testing system and the evaluation mode, and there has been a great achievement.However, there are some negative phenomena over which both language learners and language teachers feel disappointed and puzzled: most learners are passive learners, not enthusiastic about learning mostly with the purpose of passing the exams; they are strongly dependent on their teachers; they have insufficient knowledge about the aim of College English teaching and they have different learning outcomes even in the same learning environment, etc.In the language learning process, teacher,student and the learning environment play important roles. More attention should be paid to learners—the subject of the learning process. The learned teacher is important undoubtedly. However, we should also be aware of the truth that it is the internal factor that propels the development of a course. An ancient proverb says: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime."In College English Teaching Requirements promulgated on September, 26th, 2007, it is clearly stated that"one of college English teaching objectives is to develop students'autonomous learning ability, and that important symbols for successful teaching reform are the formation of students'individualized learning methods and the development of students'autonomous English learning ability"(Ministry of Education P. R. C.) Therefore, in this study the researcher raises the idea that our English teaching should focus on the cultivation of learner autonomy. This study sets out to examine the level of non-English majors' autonomous English learning competence. Based on students' autonomous problems identified, an exploration on the knowledge needed to develop learner autonomy is made. And then a mode of how to promote the learner autonomy of non-English majors in the Chinese context is put forward.130 second-year non-English majors in Changchun University of Technology participated in this study. All of them were required to complete the questionnaire adapted from Wen (1995), Broady (1996) and Littlewood (1999). The questionnaire is composed of 30 items on a five-point Likert Scale, which covers five areas: identifying what has been taught; formulating the learning objectives; selecting and implementing appropriate learning strategies (LS); monitoring the use of learning strategies; monitoring and evaluating the learning. The choices they made were transformed into frequencies, means and standard deviations by SPSS for windows program, and all the results were presented in tables. In order to get more in-depth information about students' autonomous learning problems, informal interviews were conducted among 10 students after the questionnaire.Results from the study show that the overall degree of non-English majors' autonomous English learning stays at a low level. They are in lack of ability to set practical learning goals, to carry out the plan, to create opportunities to practice English, to apply appropriate learning strategies and to measure learning outcomes. The formation of such a situation is a complex matter. Among the factors affecting LA, students' attitude towards and motivation for LA, the traditional education system and testing system, students' lack of metacognitive knowledge and strategies, and teachers'roles were found to be important. Just because of the influence of the above factors, most non-English majors turn out to be passive, dependent and less autonomous in English learning.Based on all the investigation and analyses, some suggestions are provided, which might be beneficial for the promotion of LA among Chinese students. In this thesis teachers are suggested to share their control over the language classrooms with their students and constructing an environment, which can allow learners to exercise increasing responsibility for their own learning. In the meantime, Students are encouraged to undergo a considerable transformation of their beliefs about language and their roles as a learner so as to enable themselves to undertake autonomous learning effectively. In addition, learning strategy training, especially metacognitive strategy training incorporated into language teaching is an effective way to enhance students' autonomy in language learning.In sum, those factors affecting Chinese students' autonomous competence deserve the concerted endeavors of all Chinese foreign language teachers. To cultivate and improve students' autonomy in the target language is important and necessary, for learners need it for their lifelong learning.