A Study On Autonomous Learning Of English At High Schools

Autonomous learning has become a hot issue in educational field over the past twenty years. It has been advocated from pedagogical point of view that learning autonomy is a means of effective learning and a desirable goal of teaching as well. Linguists and researchers have conducted studies in this field and provided various theories. But in China, there have been few empirical studies on the influence of the factors affecting learner autonomy and even less research exists about senior middle school students.Based on humanism and constructivism, this thesis aims to find out the current situation about senior middle school students' autonomous learning through questionnaires, interviews, etc. by analyzing the factors that influence the students' autonomous learning. This study attempts to answers the following questions: 1) What are the students' attitudes towards autonomous learning? 2) Is the level of autonomy correlated to learning achievement? 3) Does learning autonomy training have any effect on students' strategy development?Through data analysis, the empirical study and comparison of the results, the author has reached the following conclusion: 1) Most of the students show a positive attitude toward autonomous language learning. They are willing to take responsibility for their learning but they still need teachers' help, instruction and supervision; 2) The level of autonomy is positively correlated to learning achievement; 3) The students' learning techniques have been greatly improved and more appropriate learning strategies have been used in their language learning.