An Integrative Teaching Model To Cultivate Learners' Autonomy In Vocational College

In recent years, autonomy learning has become a prominent topic in the educational circles and it has become a new trend of foreign language teaching. The team"autonomy learning"was first put forward in 1981 by Henri Holec in his masterpiece Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. According to Holec, autonomy learning is"the ability to take charge of one's own learning". A learner is considered autonomous when he or she is able to set the learning objectives; select the contents, the materials and methods to be used; determine the time, place and progressions and evaluate what has been acquired. Ever since the birth of the concept, many linguists and researchers have paid great attention to it and substantial researchers and exploration on it have been carried out.A great deal of research concerning autonomy learning has been carried out in the western countries, focusing not only on the rationale of learner autonomy from pedagogical and philosophical point of view, but also on the means of facilitating the development of learner autonomy. In recent years, the study of autonomy learning has received increasing attention from teachers and researchers in China, but the relevant studies either stay on pure theoretical framework, or concentrate on the regular four year university students, including English majors and non English majors aiming to investigate the students'autonomous learning competence. This research is a tentative study on the students of higher vocational technical colleges (HVTC). With an attempt to fill up such a research gap, this study aims to identify students'autonomous issues by implementing the suggested ALTM eventually to discuss how to enhance the autonomy learning ability for students in HVTC.This paper presents an experimental study on autonomy learning by a suggested teaching model in classroom setting to cultivate the subjects'autonomy in English learning. It starts with a pretest for 111 subjects (from two classes) sophomore students majoring in numerical control from Qin Huangdao Institute of Technology and the equivalent groups are randomly assigned as the experiment group and the control group. The primary research hypotheses are 1) the suggested model can promote students'learning performance; 2) the suggested model can enhance students'learning awareness; 3) the suggested model can better stimulate students'motivation. The experimental instruments are English proficiency tests, questionnaires and learner diaries. SPSS is used to analyze the collected data for research findings. Class observation and interview during class break are supplemented for explaining the untouched problems in the questionnaire.The following findings are found from data analysis which verified the assumption, in other words, the suggested ALTM to a certain extend could prompt the autonomy learning ability for students in HVTC, can improve students'learning awareness and stimulate students'learning enthusiasm. In the teaching process, the author also obtains much enlightenment 1) handpicking teaching contents especially for HVTC students; 2) imparting students learning strategy and methodology; 3) granting students more rights on autonomy; 4) leaving students adequate time for autonomy learning; 5) Providing various learning resources on autonomy learning for students including information resources, human resources and environment resources. Through the data analysis we can draw the conclusion that the suggested ALTM could better cultivate the application ability, cooperation ability and creativity ability for students in HVTC. But the experimental time for only one semester is so limited for the subjects to enhance their language proficiency quickly and greatly. For further research we will pay more attention to these questions, namely, adding longer experimental time and reinforcing the regulation of class activities.