| The advent of the age of information brings about bright prospects to foreign language teaching. With the progress of internet and communication technology, computer assisted language teaching is getting more and more attention from educationists in China. Consequently, English teachers have the responsibility to implement internet and communication technology into their teaching curriculum, and to involve learner autonomy as the final aim in foreign language teaching. Since the tradition, teacher-centered, classroom based instruction model certainly cannot meet such needs it is necessary to explore a new"learner-centered"computer-assisted teaching and learning model.This is an action research on fostering college English learning autonomy in computer assisted language learning. 69 non-English from Oumei College were selected for the research. By one semester study on the learner-centered and computer-assisted language teaching, the action research explores how learners changed in their learning beliefs and strategies under the computer-assisted language learning environment.Knowledge is viewed by the constructivism as a process of an active practice and structuring. According to the educational theory, learners should be the main body of learning process and should be responsible for their study.Based on constructivism and second language acquisition theories as well as the previous studies on CALL, the researcher designed an action research to foster college English learning autonomy in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. The theoretical base for this study is a goal-oriented cognitive and social constructivist view of learning. Holec's three essential elements in learner autonomy development are employed as the research frame. They are goal setting, independent-action, and evaluation. Within this model, the learner is put at the center of learning; each learner constructs his own knowledge based on his previous knowledge and with the direction of the teacher and the collaboration and assistance of his or her peers.In the research, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. One group pre-test / post-test approach was adopted as the quantitative data, which were obtained from a learner autonomy survey of 69 second-year non-English majors in Oumei College. Before teaching, the first questionnaire was completed in the second week after they began the second term in 2007. After one-term's intervention by teaching, the second questionnaire for English learning was conducted in the two classes. The result was analyzed by SPASS. In addition, there were interviews designed to nine students with different changes in beliefs and strategies as the qualitative methods. Meanwhile, the writer's observation notes and the students'writing samples were used in order to gain insights into the process of learner changes. The major findings of the present study prove:Firstly, the strategies in terms of goal setting, independent-action, and evaluation have undergone statistically significant changes throughout the new model and the computer-assisted course. The students learned to make decisions about their own leaning, determined the order of steps to be taken to complete the tasks, solved their own problems, evaluated the progress and predicted the possible outcome. They were becoming the learners with clear goals and with the ability to manage their own learning.Secondly, many factors seem to have either facilitated or inhibited the development of learner autonomy in this computer–assisted English classroom. The most prevalent facilitating factors are teacher's efforts, and a favorable computer environment, while the inhibiting factors include constrains from teacher-centered classroom and achievement-test oriented language learning. The writer hopes that the action research can provide some experience as well as reference and suggestions for the teachers and learners to adapt to the new learning and teaching environment.
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