Promoting Learner Autonomy Of Students In Higher Vocational College Through Task-Based Language Teaching Approach

In recent years, learner autonomy and the task-based language teaching (TBLT) have become important issues in English education. Learner autonomy is not only conducive to improving the academic performance of students in school, but also essential to their life-long learning and development. TBLT puts the basic concepts of language application into concrete classroom instruction by means of "learning in doing", which helps the students learn and use language. Through literature analysis, the researcher finds that learner autonomy and TBLT have much in common. For example, both are "student-centered" and teachers have become the organizer and facilitator. And their teaching modes are also quite similar. Therefore, the researcher tries to introduce TBLT into English classroom in higher vocational college, hoping to change the situation that the students do not have a strong learning motivation, lack of learning strategies and learner autonomy.The study is carried out in 4 classes taught by the researcher. Two classes are experimental classes in which TBLT is employed in classroom instruction; while the others are control ones in which PPP teaching mode is employed. The experiment lasts the whole semester, about 20 weeks. The purpose of the experiment is to testify the following hypothesis: By employing TBLT into English classroom instruction in the higher vocational college, the students are offered more opportunities to use the language and experience the success, so their interests in English learning are motivated; by completing the tasks, the students master some cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, and their abilities of making good use of resource are improved. Through all the improvement, learner autonomy is fostered.During the experiment, two surveys have been conducted to find whether the students have got the improvement in English learning motivation, cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, and the abilities of making use of resources, which are closely related to learner autonomy. And the data of pre-test and post-test are collected and analyzed. The results of experiment show that not only the academic performance of students in experimental class has been greatly improved, but also their learning motivation, cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, and the abilities of making use of resources have also been significantly enhanced. The data indicate that TBLT is effective in stimulating the students learning motivation and interests, improve their confidence in English learning; it helps students master some cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies; it helps students create the desirable environment for learning and make good use of learning resources. Therefore, TBLT is helpful to foster learner autonomy.