Developing Learner Autonomy In Teaching Adults Business English

Traditional BE teaching focuses on the teacher's explanation of vocabularies, sample sentences and specimen letters.It ignores the learners' needs analysis and strategy training.With reference to teaching adult learners Business English in Zhejiang Radio and TV University,the author of this thesis conducted a case study and did a proper qualitative and quantitative analysis of BE teaching on the basis of second language acquisition theories and constructivist learning theory.The purpose of the thesis is to develop learner autonomy in adults Business English teaching.To develop learner autonomy,the author advocates the use of an autonomous learning approach in the following four stages:pre-class stage,while-class stage, post-class stage and evaluation.In these four stages,the author makes the following suggestions:(1) using authentic learning materials;(2) making study plans;(3) training learners in learning strategies;(4) creating a multi-media based authentic BE environment;(5) adopting a learner-centered skill approach;(6) assigning task-based activities;(7) carrying out a full-scale evaluation.An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of the autonomous learning approach for BE adult learners in Zhejiang Radio and TV University.The experiment lasted for a year between the experimental class and controlled class.In the experiment,the final BE examination results were used as variables to predict the effect.The finding of the experiment shows that the difference exists between the two groups.The result proves that autonomous learning can help adult learners improve their learning effect and efficiency in BE learning.Therefore,it is valuable and practical in teaching adult learners Business English.