An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Learning Autonomy And Learning Motivation Among English Majors

With the development of society and education, the teacher-centered mode has been replaced by the student-centered mode. Cultivating the ability of the autonomous learning of students which is also the focus of many teachers has become an important goal in the foreign language teaching. However, improving learning autonomy of learners is not very easy in fact, particularly in taking the consciousness of learning autonomy into practice. Aiming at how to improve the ability of learning autonomy for learners, there have been many researches in improving teaching environment and reforming teaching mode, seldom referring to the influence of individual elements of learners to the learning autonomy. And also there are few researches about the college English majors. The paper will probe the way of improving ability of learners by investigating the relationship between learning autonomy and learning motivation (one individual element of learners) on the basis of the previous researches.The research suppositions of the paper are the enhancement of learning motivation can promote the ability of autonomous learning of college English majors. Gender could influence the relationship between learning autonomy and learning motivation.At the very beginning, the paper introduces the research background, research significance and the structure of the thesis. Then it reviews the related theory and researches at home and abroad from the viewpoint of autonomous learning and learning motivation etc. And it reviewed the existed researches of the relationship between the learning motivation and autonomous learning by scholars. The paper will distinguish the different types of elements for the learning motivation and autonomous learning through the empirical study, while study the relationship of these elements and the effects to the English majors. Therefore, it can get beneficial inspirations for teaching practice. Based on the theory and research, the paper draws lessons from the related research methods of the scholars. Finally, it designs a questionnaire composed of four parts. The questionnaires are well finished by 149 students of English Education majors of Zibo Normal College who are freshmen. The research results show the following points:(1) The college students have been aware that the importance of learning autonomy and practice the autonomous learning. And they have realized that learning motivation can affect learning autonomy. Therefore, they are using all kinds of tactics to adjust the learning motivation.(2) The learning motivations of learners exist in many aspects, for example, the external motivation, the internal motivation, cultural motivation, instrumental motivation and so on. The related relationship between different types of learning motivation and the ability of learning autonomy is different.(3) The strength of the learning motivation will directly affect the students'learning values, learning interest, self-efficacy and the will-power, including the choices for the attitude of learning environment and learning tactics. The learning motivation is positively correlated with the autonomous learning.(4) The gender can affect the adjustment of learning motivation and the development of learning autonomy.Although the research has some limitations, the results will have an important influence on the English learning and English teaching. Motivation is a psychological jargon which is widely used in our daily life and the research. When students have the learning motivation, they will behave more pro-active, be interested in learning, and establish learning goals. From this perspective, the study bring the relationship between learning motivation and autonomous learning into the field of English learning and provide a new perspective to explain the individual differences in English learning .The results also show that English teachers should try to motivate students and help students take the appropriate strategies to adjust their own motivation or overcome the difficulties in order to promote the English learning.