A Study Of EFL Learner Autonomy Of Non-English Majors

In recent years, learner autonomy has become a hot issue in foreign language teaching. The term "learner autonomy" was first advanced in the book "Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning" by Henri Holec in 1981, which refers to "the ability to take charge of one's own learning". It is unanimously believed that learners should play an active role and take more responsibility in language learning to improve their learning efficiency. In 2004, the Ministry of Education of China published the latest College English Curriculum Requirements, which highlights that learner autonomy is one of the objectives of college English teaching, and the development of individualized study methods and the autonomous learning ability on the part of students is an important indicator of the successful reform of the teaching model.Ever since the birth of the concept "learner autonomy" in 1980s, a considerable number of researches and explorations have been carried out from different perspectives. In the West, the studies mainly focus on exploring teaching and learning. By comparison, the studies in China are in initial stage, which either stay on pure theoretical framework or belong to empirical research that proves the effectiveness of some strategy training by comparing the results of control group and experimental group. Few are done to investigate students' current autonomous English learning situation in Chinese context. In this regard, the study aims to examine students' autonomous English learning situation, diagnose the problems, and find out some practical ways to help them move towards autonomy.132 second-year non-English majors in Chang'an University participated in the study. They were required to complete the questionnaire revised from Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (version 7.0) and Wen Qiufang's questionnaire on the English Learning Situation of Chinese Learners in 15 minutes. The questionnaire consists of 55 items on a five-point Likert Scale, investigating students' autonomy from five aspects: attitudes towards learner autonomy, perception of teachers' role, degree of self-esteem, motivation and use of learning strategy. The choices were transformed into means, standard deviations and P values by SPSS 14.0. In order to get more detailed information about students' autonomy, an interview was conducted among 15 students after the questionnaire. According to the research, the thesis tries to explore the following questions: 1) how autonomous are Chinese non-English major students under investigation in English learning? 2) do female and male students obtain the same degree of autonomy in English learning? The collected data show that the overall degree of non-English majors' autonomy in English learning is rather low. They are willing to take responsibility for their own learning, but the responsibility they actually take is too limited. They are still inclined to depend on their teachers in some aspects. They are motivated English learners to some extent, but some students, mainly male students, are instrumentally motivated. Their degree of self-esteem is low too. Additionally, they lack knowledge of learning strategies, and undoubtedly their application of learning strategies is far from enough. In general, most students are passive, dependent, less autonomous English learners. Besides, through comparison, it is also found that the degree of female students' autonomy is relatively higher than the male's. Female students are more confident and more integratively motivated in English learning. They tend to assume more responsibility and adopt more kinds of strategies to improve their study.On the basis of data analysis and discussion, the author puts forward some tentative suggestions in the hope that they might be beneficial for the enhancement of learner autonomy among Chinese students. Teachers are expected to shift their traditional role in English teaching and share their control over the classroom with their students in order to encourage students to assume more and more responsibility for their learning. Moreover, no effort should be spared to improve students' degree of self-esteem, stimulate their motivation, and help them to obtain proper motivation. Finally, incorporation of learning strategy training into language teaching is strongly recommended, which is vital to the improvement of students' learner autonomy.