Fostering Learner Autonomy In Chinese Senior High School EFL

The field of foreign language learning and teaching has been in a constant stateof change over the last two decades. The main one has been a shift in focus from theteacher to the language learner. The shift is a combined result of social developmentand research achievements in diverse fields such as psychology, cognitive psychology,sociology and linguistics. These developments have, among others, led to a greaterinterest in learner autonomy. As Little (1991) described, "Learner autonomy is thenew 'buzz-word' in the field of applied linguistics in the recent twenty years."A large body of research concerning learner autonomy has been carried out inwestern countries, focusing not only on the rationale from pedagogical andphilosophical point of view, but also on the approaches of facilitating the development.In recent years, the study of learner autonomy has also received increasing attentionfrom teachers and researchers in China, especially fostering learner autonomy inChinese senior high school English teaching. In 2001, the Ministry of Education ofChina pointed out that schools should take developing students' autonomous learningability as the primary goal. Students should be taught how to learn. In 2003, theMinistry of Education again demanded that one of the primary objectives of theEnglish course in elementary education is to develop autonomous learning ability.This study aims to identify students' autonomous problems, and find out effectiveways to promote learner autonomy for Chinese senior school EFL students so as toimprove the efficiency of English learning. The key questions addressed in this paperare: To what extent are senior high school students autonomous in English learning?Is there any difference between excellent (higher academic achievements) andmoderate students (average academic achievements) regarding autonomous Englishlearning (AEL)? Any gender difference between male and female students regardingAEL? How can learner autonomy for Chinese senior high school students in EFL bepromoted?On the basis of previous research and in light of learner autonomy theories, thispaper analyzes senior high students' current autonomy level and reveals someproblems to be urgently dealt with. The previous related studies usually took thestudents as a whole and few studies could be found concerning their individualdifferences. As the future language teaching will be autonomy-oriented and ought tosuit different needs of various students, it is significant to study autonomous Englishlearning competence of various students. In order to get a clearer picture of seniorhigh students' current autonomy levels, the present study classifies the studentsaccording to their academic achievements and gender. Three hundred and eighty-twosenior high school students from different areas participated in this study. All of themwere required to complete the questionnaire adapted from Gao (2003), Printrich (1993)and Oxford (1990). The questionnaire is composed of thirty-two items on a five-pointLikert Scale, covering four crucial factors to learner autonomy: motivation,self-confidence, learning strategies and learning context. The choices they made wereprocessed by SPSS 13.0 for descriptive analysis. In order to clarify some vague ideasexposed in the questionnaire and reflect the true level of senior high school students'AEL, in-depth interviews were conducted among 20 students after the questionnaire.The findings show that the current level of AEL among senior high schoolstudents remains at a low level. The study also reveals that there are significantdifferences between excellent and moderate students in terms of motivation,self-confidence, learning strategies and learning context. That is to say, excellentlearners are more autonomous than moderate learners in language learning.Meanwhile, obvious differences exist between female and male students with regardto motivation and learning strategy, which means that there are some significantdifferences in some aspects of autonomous English learning.Accordingly, the study offers some suggestions on promoting learner autonomyin English learning of senior high school. These suggestions include: enhancingstudents' motivation, developing students' self-confidence, equipping learners withautonomous learning skills and providing supportive learning context for learnerautonomy. In that sense, the research is both significant in theory and worthwhile inpractice.An initial achievement has just been made in the research. There must be manyproblems to be discussed and solved before autonomous learning is widely carried outin senior English courses. But we do believe that this study can make more seniorhigh school English teachers in China realize the current situation of learnerautonomy among their students, and urge them to search for effective ways to fosterlearner autonomy so as to improve the efficiency of English teaching.