Cultivating The Students' Autonomous Learning Ability In Senior High School English Teaching

Learner autonomy has been a buzzword in foreign language teachingin the recent twenty years. In China, Education Ministry has set the maingoal of English teaching and learning as 'developing the students'autonomous English learning' in the New English Standard CourseStandard for the Basic Education stage. Learners in senior schools, are nolonger satisfied with the traditional teacher-centered way of teachingEnglish, which neglects the central role of learners. It should be replacedby the learner-centered approach so that learners' comprehensivelanguage use ability can be improved. The new basic curriculum reformmovements emphasize the sustaining development of learners. Therefore,it becomes imperative to foster learner autonomy in English teaching insenior schools.This thesis first look into the possibility of developing autonomy inEnglish learning among middle school students by introducing thebackground of learner autonomy, brief review of the present research onLA, necessity of this study and different definitions of learner autonomy.Theoretical basis for learner autonomy is also thoroughly presented. Thisthesis is based on an experiment. The author took two classes of theSenior One students as subjects and made a research on the effect learnerautonomy has on English teaching in senior schools by means ofquestionnaire and experiment. From the results of the questionnaire, it isconcluded that the senior school students are weak in awareness and abilities of learner autonomy. To improve their comprehensive languageuse ability, it is imperative to cultivate learner autonomy. In theexperiment, the author designed activities to help the students to achievelearner autonomy. The analysis from the experiment shows that thestudents in the experimental class made greater success in learningEnglish than those in the control class. They can properly monitor andassess their studies in the process of learning. They feel more confidenttowards learning English. The author also states the problems appearingin the experiment and makes some pedagogical suggestions for the futureresearch.Developing autonomous English learning in middle school in Chinais our long-term pedagogical goal. On the condition of the providedsystematic supporting circumstances and contexts, the ultimate goal ofdeveloping the students' autonomous learning can take shape.