Autonomous English Learning In Senior High School

The 21st century urges for human beings' life-long learning capacity. Meanwhile the acceleration of globalization has been attaching more and more importance to English since English is the most important international language in cross-cultural communication. It is under such global social contexts that learner autonomy has become a buzzword in the field of English language teaching and learning all over the world, which focuses on fostering students'abilities to learn and think autonomously.The theory of learner autonomy has been mainly influenced by contemporary schools of thought in educational psychology, especially humanism, cognitive theory and constructivism. Learner autonomy has been viewed as a desirable goal of education as well as a concept of teaching and learning. Developing learner autonomy as the most prominent goal in English teaching and learning in senior high schools is stated in the general curriculum goals for different levels in the new English Curriculum Standards for Middle Schools issued by the Ministry of Education in 2003. The goal for Level Six is to instill a strong awareness of learner autonomy, Level Seven, explicit and continuous motivation for learning and strong awareness of learner autonomy, and Level Eight, stronger confidence and the ability of autonomous learning. It is true that developing learner autonomy is one of the most important goals of English teaching and learning in high schools in China. The mode of autonomous learning, whose theoretical and strategic system has been evolving, has been studied and applied in many countries in the world and has achieved a lot in teaching so far. Therefore, to apply autonomous learning in middle school English class accords with the requirements of the current curriculum reform in China.Based on the theories, this thesis has carried out a case study of autonomous learning in English learning in order to find out the possible approaches to promote learner autonomy in senior high school. In the study, questionnaires are used to analyze current situation and problems in senior high school EFL classroom. After adopting some approaches to improve students'learning autonomy to better the current English learning of the experimental class in the experiment, the students' self-regulated ability in experimental class is higher than that in control class obviously, and their English marks are also higher than those who are in control class. The author, based on the result of the experiment, brings forward some constructive recommendations with respect to English teaching.This paper proves it is possible and necessary to promote learner autonomy in China and that learners learn better if they are able to take charge of their own learning. I'm sure the research will help improving English teaching in Senior High and further studies on learner autonomy.