Application Of Autonomous Learning In The Teaching Of English Listening In Vocational Colleges

In the information age, learning society needs to focus on learners' autonomous learning ability. Vocational college is a training base for advanced learners, and it needs to adapt to the social development. However, many teachers mistakenly believe that listening is a simple and passive language skill to be improved only through using the modern teaching methods like audio, video, or media. But the reality is that many vocational college students complain about the difficulties in the listening. The reason is that teachers are not sure of the teaching process. This thesis shows that the process of listening involves the speech perception and speech decoding. Thus, it is not a passive psychological process for listeners, but an active mental process. In other words, a good listening is the listener-oriented process of teaching of information with listening materials. This requires the students to grasp the autonomous learning theory. The core of autonomous learning is the emphasis by which learners can consciously do self-regulation, control, management in order to evaluate their own learning. Based on the above theoretical analysis, this paper argues that we must rely on the autonomous learning theory to change the status of vocational education.The thesis is divided into 5 parts. The first part is the introduction, which briefly introduces the research background, research ideas and research methods. The second part is the literature review, which mainly classifies and analyzes the results of the domestic and foreign English listening teaching, on basis of which this paper defines some of the core concepts. The third part is the research methodology.300 students and teachers act as the subjects from the Chengde Nursing Vocational College. A questionnaire is adopted in addition to an interview. The author knows about the main problems in autonomous study of the subjects in relation to their English listening. The results of the thesis show that the majority of vocational students believe that vocational college listening is quite important, and they are also willing to practice more to improve their listening ability. They recognize the need for autonomous study. However, they lack effective capacity of learning by autonomous study. In effect, they carry out their learning by random, seldom making plans in accordance with their level or proficiency. They rarely reflect on the learning outcomes, methods, and listening activities. It is found that their awareness of cognitive strategies is low in learning vocabulary, grammar, reasoning, and listening. Most students fail to form the habit of previewing of contents, and few are aware of their listening proficiency. The fourth part is a response portion which combines with the application of autonomous learning in the teaching of English listening in vocational colleges. First of all. the teachers should take themselves as counselors and assistants, consciously involved in the listening. Second, the listening teachers should focus on the capability of the learners to determine the learning objectives, make teaching plans to improve the autonomous motivation of the vocational students. Again, listening teachers are advised to instruct the metacognitive. cognitive, social, and emotional strategies. Finally, teachers should encourage students to do the optional learning, to choose the listening materials according to their actual situation to develop learning resources.The fifth part is the conclusion, where it is proposed that the autonomous study' is of top priority in the teaching of listening in vocational colleges. The thesis also shows the limitations of the present research and suggestions for further study.