| College English is a compulsory course for non-English majors. However, the teaching and learning status quo of College English in quite a number of Regional Undergraduate Colleges are not satisfactory. Many students could not adapt to the new learning environment and meet the objectives stipulated by college English syllabus in the specified time. They are perplexed because their learning efficiency is not proportionate to their great efforts. The root cause behind it is that they lack the fundamental learning strategies and autonomous learning abilities.With the development of foreign language teaching reform, the teaching focus has been shifted from the traditional "teacher-centered" to "learner-centered", cultivation and promotion of learner autonomy is regarded as the ultimate goal in foreign language education.In the past few decades, many researches from different perspectives have been done at home and abroad to explore the relationship between strategy training and cultivation of learner autonomy. However, relatively little research has been done to explore how dictation practice can be employed to cultivate autonomous learning ability.Following the training model of Oxford et al (1990), this thesis aims at guiding learners to obtain some basic learning strategies and metacognitive strategies in particular so as to foster and develop their autonomous learning abilities by means of dictation-based strategy training. Furthermore, in the process of training, teacher endeavors to make participants familiarize themselves with the general requirement of college English syllabus and guide them to have a better understanding of their present listening, speaking, reading and writing levels in order to motivate them to practice using the available effective learning strategies in various language learning tasks. When the participants perceived the advantages of dictation-based strategy training, they will definitely transfer the available strategies to new learning tasks. Accordingly, the positive transfer could be accomplished and their autonomous learning awareness and abilities be fostered and developed.At the beginning of the semester prior to the experiment, a questionnaire on metacognitive strategy and listening comprehension pre-test were adopted to check use frequency of metacognitive strategies and listening performance of both EG and CG. The dictation-based strategy training was carried out in EG twice a week from the second week of the semester and lasted 15 weeks. It aims at promoting learners'listening abilities and cultivating and enhancing their metacognitive strategy use and metacognitive awareness. At the end of the semester, the same questionnaire on metacognitive strategy and listening comprehension post-test were implemented to check whether passage dictation practice can facilitate their listening comprehension and promote their metacognitive strategy use and metacognitive awareness as well. In addition, another questionnaire on students'attitudes towards the effect of taking dictation was designed to further explore the effectiveness and students'acceptance of dictation practice.At the dictation practice stage, after listening to the dictation passage for four times, students are required to correct the mistakes or restore any missing parts by referring to the dictation script, using red ink pen to distinguish the corrected parts from their original transcription for the sake of keeping dictation diaries later. After class, students can discuss and analyze in pairs the reasons for their mistakes, and keep dictation diary to summarize their feelings at doing the dictation exercises.Students'diaries indicate that dictation practice is helpful for them to identify the existing problems, to know their strengths and weaknesses and motivate them to adjust learning method and make corresponding plans to resolve the problems. Above all, through keeping dictation diary, learners reflect and monitor their learning process, evaluate learning outcomes and summarize some useful learning strategies. Therefore, to a great degree, they have acquired metacognitive awareness and are able to regulate their studies.In the course of the experiment, the less successful learners are provided with the chance to practice using the strategies adopted by the successful learners. Besides, students are encouraged to practice additional strategies supplemented by the teacher in the course of their English study, which helps them to transfer the learning strategies to new learning tasks.After the completion of the training, the analysis of questionnaire on metacognitive strategies indicated that students in EG significantly increased their use of metacognitive strategies. The comparison of listening scores before and after the training suggested that EG outperformed CG in term of their increase in grades, especially the grades increase in compound dictation. In addition, the results of another questionnaire on students'attitudes towards taking dictation showed:almost 80% of students expressed their approval that dictation practice can facilitate listening, speaking and English proficiency as well; concerning its impact on goal setting and plan making, evaluation of learning outcomes and the positive effect of diary-keeping,68% to 80% of the students expressed their approval; as for whether continue dictation practice or not,82%(36 out of a total 44 students) hope to continue dictation practice with the guidance of the teacher.Through the above analysis, we can draw a conclusion that dictation-based strategy training is advantageous to the cultivation and development of learner autonomy.
|
PDF Full Text Request