Fostering The Learner Autonomy In High School English Teaching

As the concept of life-long learning is more and more widely accepted, every language learner wants to be a successful learner."Unless you can take charge of your own learning, you will probably not succeed in mastering the new language"(Joan Rubin&Irene Thompson 2004:59). Meanwhile every language learner is different from others in his/her motivation, attitude, needs and wants, learning style and learning strategy."Taking charge of one's own learning"is one of the characteristics of an autonomous learner, on the other hand we want to encourage learner to be autonomous just because we are considering the learner's difference. To promote the learner's ability to learn autonomously. both the teacher and the learner should change their roles, and the traditional"teacher-centred"teaching method should also be transferred into"learner-centred"teaching method. All the above is the reason why we want to carry out this research.This research is based on social constructivism, whose theoretical foundations are behaviourism, cognitive psychology, constructivism, humanism and social interactionism. It is a theory about the second language learning and acquisition. Constructivism posits the view that, rather than internalising or discovering objective knowledge, individuals reorganize and restructure their experience. And it supports, and extends to cover psychological versions of autonomy that appertain to learners'behaviour, attitudes, motivation, and self-concepts (Benson & Voller 1997:23). Humanism emphasizes the development of the whole person, it points out that a learner has the possibility to be an autonomous learner when he or she is two or three years of old, the personal learning consequence happen when the learner becomes autonomousin part. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental processed that are involved in learning. While social constructivism does not simply add these theories together, it is a new theory in which different aspects of the teaching /learning process can be better understood., points out knowledge is constructed by the learner himself/herself, it isn't passed by others. From social constructivism points of view the construction happens in the context where the learner interact with others. The four key sets of factors influence the learning process-teachers, learners tasks and contexts. The learner plays a central role in a social constructivist model.In this research, which was based on the above theories, an experiment was carried out. At the beginning of the experiment, By a survey, pre-test and interview, we analysed the factors which were related to the learner autonomy, motivation, attitude, learning strategy and learning style. All of these helped us to get some information about the problems which appeared in learner's ability to learn autonomously. Then learner profiles were established for learners both in the experimental class and in the control class. The experimental class was given courses by"learner-centred"teaching method. The students in the experimental class were encouraged to participate in the preparation of the class, in the classroom autonomous interaction, and in the extensive reading after class. At the same time, they were trained to master and use some meta-cognitive and learning strategies. Through the recording and updating of the learner profile, they were trained to self-monitor, self-evaluate, and reflect on their learning so that the learner's awareness of autonomy and their ability to learn autonomously can be improved. After a ten-week training, the second survey and post-test indicated that there was great difference between the Experimental class and the Control class. It turns out that the learner-centred teaching method is an effective way to promote the learner autonomy. Because only two classes participated in the experiment, the present research is limited. While by the analysis of the experiment, it still can be concluded that improving learner autonomy is a long-project work. It depends on the functions of both the internal factors and external factors. And the ability to learn autonomously does not grow at random, or occasionally, and fostering learner autonomy is a generally developing progress. Learner autonomy can be developed with others'help and can be cultivated in an appropriate context.