The Effect Of Reading Autonomy On The Reading Competence

As learner autonomy becomes popular in language learning, more and more emphasis is laid on learner-centered learning. Therefore, the main task of EFL teaching in senior high schools is not only to improve the students' language ability, but also to foster the students' ability of learning, that is, to foster a self-access learning ability. Self-access learning is an efficient way to foster the students' self-access ability and to improve the language competence. However, in this area little literature can be found. Therefore, the present author aims to make a study on the relationship between senior high school students' reading autonomy and reading competence.This thesis will begin with the discussion of the current curriculum reform of EFL teaching in China and the new concept that EFL teachers should adapt to the new changes arising from the curriculum reform. After comparing with the basic teaching contents and teaching concept of EFL teaching included in new Curriculum Standards, the paper summarizes the common problems in current EFL teaching of reading in senior high schools. After that, a new idea will be proposed that EFL teaching of reading should be student-centered. The main task of EFL teaching of reading should help foster the self-access learning ability of readers. A survey on reading and a reading comprehension test is then conducted and shows that there is a positive relevance between them. Based on the result of the survey and the test, a hypothesis that reading autonomy will help to improve reading competence is put forward.And then an experiment is carried out to prove this hypothesis. The data collected during the process of experiment proves that reading autonomy does help to improve reading competence. As a conclusion, advantages and disadvantages of reading autonomy are evaluated and analyzed, and suggestions on how to improvingreading autonomy are made.