Investigating And Analyzing The Autunomous English Learning Of The Students In Junior High School In Towns

Since the concept of "learner autonomy" was put forward in1980s, autonomous learning has beenpopular in the language field. Educationalists in west advocate cultivating learner autonomy as one ofeducation goals. And many researchers have conducted a few studies in this respect, and got somepreliminary results.Nowadays, science and technology develop rapidly. Facing the developing-fast society, people have tolearn continuously. Life-long learning has been regarded as one educational goal in modern society. In2001,Chinese Education Ministry promulgated the Basic Education Curriculum Reform (on trial). In2003, theNormal Senior English Curriculum (on trail) was also promulgated; and then in2007, it was the NormalJunior English Curriculum (on trail). All of these three official files state that it is necessary to change thepresent learning method, and advocate that students should be active to participate in learning and beinterested in probing into their studies, and cultivate learner autonomy. As three curriculums werepromulgated, researchers in our country have conducted many studies on autonomous learning at differentlearning stages. In recent years, some researches on autonomous learning in Junior High School havebegun to be present, but those in Junior High School in towns are rarely touched upon.Based on Xindian No.1Junior High School, the thesis makes an investigation on current situation ofautonomous learning in Junior High School in towns. A questionnaire and an interview are used asinstruments. The main objective is to know out the current state of learner autonomy in English, and to findout these factors affecting the students' English learning autonomy in towns. Two comparative analyseshave been made. One is among three grades and the other is between the top ten students and the last tenstudents. In Junior High School, most of the students are aware of the importance of autonomous Englishlearning. However, the students in different grades or having different learning efficiency perform activelyin different respects in the process of English learning. The students in Grade7and8behave actively inclass, while the students in Grade9keep silent in class, but active to learn English out of class. And notonly do the more efficient students have strong awareness and ability of autonomous English learning, butthe less efficient students have the same features. In high school of the towns, the factors affecting the students' autonomous English learning mainly consist of two respects. One is the traditional teaching,which has great effect on the autonomous awareness of the English teachers. The other one is lacking ofgood environment of autonomous English learning and enough learning materials on Internet. In the lastchapter of the thesis, the author gives some practical suggestions on English teaching and learning in towns,based on the findings of the investigation.