A Study On Learner Autonomy In Rural Senior High School

Learner autonomy has been a buzzword in foreign language teaching in the recent thirty years. The center of the teaching and learning has shifted from the teacher'teaching to the students'learning. The main goal in the new National English Curriculum is to foster students'overall language ability. One of main tasks is to facilitate autonomy in learning. In China, a lot of researchers did some researches on learner autonomy, but there have been a few empirical studies on learner autonomy in senior high school, and even less research on rural senior high school.Based on humanism, constructivism, and cognitive, the author made a survey on learner autonomy in three different senior high schools in Ling Shuo county, which is an impoverished county. The subjects consisted of 267 students from three different schools. Some influencial factors on learner autonomy were analyzed. Based on the survey, the writer did empirical research on how to foster their ability to take charge of their own learning during a term. The study attempted to answers the two questions: 1) Whether the ability of autonomous English learning could be cultivated in rural senior high school. 2) Whether students'English scores could be improved by cultivating their autonomy.By analyzing the main influencial factors on learner autonomy, based on learning strategies, attitude and motivation, self-esteem, teacher and students'role, students'awareness of learner autonomy, the author did the empirical research to foster learner autonomy. During the experimental research some techniques were used, such as motivating students'motivation, making use of learner profiles and reflection, training learning strategies and cooperative learning, setting learning goals, making use of learner contract, and authentic materials. After data analysis, the empirical study and comparison of the results, the author drew the following conclusions: 1) Experimental methodology could help cultivate the students'autonomous learning in rural senior schools and could help to make the students become autonomous learners and learn English actively. 2) Cultivating students'autonomous learning could help the students improve their grades in English tests.In sum, developing autonomous English learning in senior high school is not only a long-term pedagogical goal but also an ability that every learner needs for their life-long learning. The research on leaner autonomy in poverty rural area is to find out more and better methods to promote English learning effectively.