A Study Of Autonomous Language Learning Strategies In Junior High Schools

Learner autonomy has been a buzz word in foreign language teaching in the past twenty years. Especially in western context, the concern with teaching and learning has shifted from the teachers' teaching to the students' learning. Some researchers even consider promoting learner autonomy. In China, "Developing the students' autonomous English learning" has been set as the main goal of English teaching and learning in the New English Course Standard for the Basic Education Stage by the Ministry of Education. This urgently demands teachers and grassroots' education authorities to create the prerequisites for autonomous learning to guarantee that all students will improve both intellect and other abilities.This thesis first looks into the possibility of developing autonomy in English learning among junior high school students by introducing the background of learner autonomy and the former researches on it. Then the students' autonomous English learning is thoroughly analyzed in the background of English language teaching in China, including its definitions, focuses, the necessity of cultivating the student autonomy in the process of English learning in junior high school and its operability in teaching in terms of principle and action. The concept of learner autonomy falls into educational philosophy and derives from humanistic psychology, cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics. This paper aims to document the advantages of learner autonomy in improving the students' attitudes toward and their abilities of English learning. The autonomous students in English learning are characterized in a number of ways: realizing correctly the teacher's objectives; having their own learning objectives; selecting and employing appropriate learning strategies; often consciously monitoring their own use of learning strategies and using self-assessment regularly to monitor their own learning. In a word, successful students are those who learn autonomously, and are willingly and able to be responsible for their own learning.This paper presents a learner training programme conducted with students of Class Ten, Grade Seven in No.2 Middle School in Lingxi, Cangnan, Zhejiang. This research aims at raising the subjects' self-directed learning attitudes and developing their ability of employing learning strategies so as to help them become independent learners. The techniques which are employed for data collection include: questionnaires, interviews, learners' diaries and teacher's journals.65 copies of two kinds of questionnaires were handed out and all of them were collected at the beginning and the end of the semester respectively. A questionnaire about learners' attitudes was completed before and after training to find out the effects of the training on students' attitudes. The other questionnaire was first done at the beginning of the semester to investigate the learners' strategies that the students employed in their study. At the end of the semester it was used again to discover the effect of the training.To further discover the effects of the training two interviews were carried out at the beginning and the end of the semester respectively. Three students were interviewed. The first interview was carried out to find the students' attitudes to self-directed learning, how much they knew about learner strategies and how much they could use them in their study (perhaps unconsciously). The second interview was conducted to discover what influence the training has exerted on the learners.With the purpose to discover the development of the students' leaning strategies and to help solve the problems they encountered during the training, learner diaries were collected each week. In order to improve the learner training constantly and reflect the teaching activities teacher's journals were adopted.Findings obtained from various data show that:1. The training helps students to self-diagnose their strengths and weaknesses in language learning.2. The training makes students become aware of what helps them to learn the language more efficiently.3. Students have grasped a variety of learning strategies and experimented in different learning activities after training. 4. Students can apply the metacognitive strategies (especially in planning, monitoring and self-evaluating) in their learning process more effectively after training.5. The students' attitudes have changed from teacher-dependence to self-dependence. After training students become more willing to take responsibility for their learning.Developing autonomous English learning in junior high school in China is our long-term pedagogical goal. On the condition of the provided systematic supporting circumstances and contexts, the ultimate goal of developing the students' autonomous learning can take shape.