Application Of Interactive Autonomous Learning Mode In Teaching College English Writing

Learner autonomy has become one buzz word in recent years in educational discussions abroad and at home.This thesis contends that learner autonomy is the learner's capability in certain context to take control of his own learning in the service of his perceived needs and aspiration.Both this definition and the review of the previous studies on developing autonomy in interaction show us that we need to develop learner autonomy in an interactive way.Besides,the present college English curriculum places the development of learner autonomy and listening and speaking competence as the main objectives of college English teaching.However,the students in large English teaching class at present are provided with little chance to interact with others and it seems that they learn in a comparatively isolated environment,which hinder their development of both listening and speaking competence and learner autonomy.Therefore,the interactive autonomous learning mode(IALM),which meets the needs to develop learner autonomy, learners' ability of listening,speaking and cooperation,is applied in college English writing instruction in this research to explore its feasibility and effectiveness.This thesis explains the definition of the IALM in detail and discusses its reasonability based on social constructivism in educational psychology and "Comprehensible Input/Output Hypotheses" in SLA.The thesis continues to illuminate the framework of this mode through learners and teachers' preparation,tasks designing and learning contexts building.Though this learning mode has been put forward by Yuan in 2007 based on the practices and researches in Xi'an Institute of Post and Telecommunications,it has not been widely conducted in other universities in classroom settings.So is to apply this learning mode into writing instruction.Thus,the researcher of this thesis conducts an experiment in China West Normal University with the collaborative writing instruction being conducted in the IALM.It intends to demonstrate that the collaborative writing instruction conducted in the IALM has more advantages than the usual writing teaching method.Forty five students from Chinese department and forty eight students from Mathematics department are chosen to be the sample of the subjects of this research. These two classes are both classified as Level B Classes according the graded language teaching model in China West Normal University.The class in which the students are majoring in Chinese is arranged to be the experimental group.And the other in which the students are majoring in Mathematics is to be the control group.The students in the experimental group undergo the collaborative writing activities conducted in the IALM and the students in the control group experience the usual writing teaching method.At the beginning of the experiment,a writing proficiency test is conducted among the students in these two groups.During the experiment,research data are collected through classroom observation and learners' diaries.After three months' experiment,another writing proficiency test is conducted.Then the data collected through these means are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.The findings of the experiment reveal that the collaborative writing instruction conducted in the IALM is more effective in improving learners' writing proficiency than the usual writing teaching method,especially effective in improving learners' ability in diction among the five aspects of writing proficiency.Besides,the data also suggest that the students in the experimental group develop stronger interest in English writing and English learning than the students in the control group.The students in the experimental group also develop clearer self-awareness in the process of interaction with peer students and good interpersonal relationships between each other than the students in the control group.The demonstration of the collaborative writing instruction conducted in the IALM having more advantages than the usual English writing teaching method shows us the feasibility and effectiveness of the IALM and provides us a new method to teach English writing in large class.But it needs further researches in other universities to verify and popularize it.