A Study Of The Effect Of The Non-English Major's Autonomous Listening Learning

Listening comprehension has always been a difficult part in foreign language study for Chinese English learners. The reason for poor listening is complicated. One of the main reasons is the actual situation in English teaching. In the progress of current foreign language teaching reform, the class hour of listening comprehension is generally reduced, usually two class hours each week. Because of this, students will get quite limited guidance. In addition, the traditional listening class is difficult to achieve every student's need. In view of the teaching method of autonomous learning, combining the needs of students and cognitive characteristics, it will encourage students to develop the ability of autonomous learning and carry out autonomous learning outside class. This paper analyzes the theory of autonomous learning connotation and the necessity of implementing autonomous learning in English listening. With the actual effect of autonomous listening learning in many colleges, the author put forward the necessity to develop autonomous listening learning in the listening teaching for non-English majors.According to the actual situation of a university of science and technology, the author selects one experimental class and one control class from the freshmen and carries out research on actual effects of autonomous listening learning of non-English majors. This research analyzes the application of autonomous learning in college English listening teaching through tests, questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews.First of all, the author chooses two classes of students. One of the classes is set as experimental class and the other one is set as control class. The two classes are all freshmen from two different science and engineering majors in the university of science and technology. After that, the author designs different patterns of teaching management for the two classes. The author selects one semester's listening classes (in one semester the students totally have sixteen times of listening class and each class has two class hours and carries out one unit of the book) as the experimental research. During this semester's course, the control class still has the traditional teaching method --- the teacher teaches all the details and key points of one unit. While, on the other hand, the students in the experimental class conduct autonomous listening learning mode --- the teacher is only responsible for assigning tasks, monitoring the learning process and answering questions. At the end of the semester, the students have a test which is chosen from the CET4 test (College English Test for non-English majors). The author analyzes the result of this test and then compares the two methods of teaching. In addition, through questionnaires, the author understands what kind of learning methods the students master; to which level they achieve their autonomous learning ability and what kind of learning strategies they use in the progress of autonomous learning.The thesis contains six chapters. Chapter One introduces the background, significance and objective of the research. In Chapter Two the author introduces the research at home and aboard on autonomous learning and self-directed learning in listening. In Chapter Three the author introduces the theoretical foundation of the research. Chapter Four introduces research design, with the research tools of test, questionnaire, learning diary, etc. In Chapter Five the author analyzes the data collected for the research. In Chapter Six the author makes the conclusion based on the analysis.The result proves that the experimental class and control class have significantly different results. Thus, it is feasible to enhance autonomous learning ability through a series of measures for monitoring the learning process and training on the learning strategies of the learners.