The Influence Of Process Syllabus On Learner Autonomy In College English Teaching-A Class Observation Report

Autonomous language learning has always been a concern in the English teaching circles. Researchers have been aiming at fostering learner autonomy and doing ongoing researches on effective ways of improving learner autonomy in language learning.As an extension of task-based syllabuses, process syllabus assumes tasks as the basis in class which can make students actively involved in the classroom decision-making process. Both teachers and students are joint decision-makers on subjects like "why to learn, what to learn, how to learn and how to evaluate the outcomes of the process". There are ongoing communications, negotiations, evaluations and reflections within process syllabus in learning. Each student is considered ultimately responsible for his/her own learning and to engage his/her own personality in the learning process. Task-based learning in process syllabus is viewed as a powerful tool that enhances learner's motivation, responsibility and independence in learning in which the learner has the opportunity to learn how to learn, how he/she has learned by making self-evaluations and self-reflections and finally to improve learner autonomy.With the reference to Oxford's technical (focus on training of learning strategies), psychological (personal characteristics), sociocultural (scaffolding and mediation) and political-critical (ideology, access, power structures) versions of learner autonomy, the thesis writer adopts the weak version of process syllabus with task-based learning model in class which can make the teacher and students' full participations in class in order to investigate to what extent the use of process syllabus in class can influence learner autonomy.All the data are collected from questionnaires, interviews with the students, researcher's class observation and the contents of the students' final report. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire has been assured. The data from the questionnaires are calculated in SPSS 15.0 analysis system to show the significant changes between pre-and post-questionnaire test after the intervention of process syllabus in the English pronunciation class. The thesis presents both quantitative and qualitative data analysis.According to the quantitative data analysis, there are significant changes occurred to the students on technical version of learner autonomy and some insignificant changes to other three versions. The qualitative data analysis makes supplementary explanations to show some changes in learner autonomy from four perspectives: strategy use, attitude, inner motivation, self-recognition, ability of cooperation and communication, capacity in finding and solving problems are all enhanced to some degree. The reasons for these significant or insignificant changes on learner autonomy are analyzed and students' responses to process syllabus in class are described at the same time.In conclusion, the results of this study seem to suggest that process syllabus may help create a desirable language environment to promote learner autonomy, which will be a referenced model both for curriculum design and classroom teaching. It is true that there are some limitations in this research. Because process syllabus is a new field in EFL research, further studies on its effects on learner autonomy are needed to provide more insights into this domain.