A Study Of Promoting Self-efficacy In Non-English Majors’ Autonomy In English Learning

This thesis probes into an effective way to promote learner autonomy of non-Englishmajors from the angle of raising their self-efficacy. With the rapid development of science andtechnology, life-long learning and life-long education have become the leading learning beliefsof our society. More and more people have begun to realize the importance of learner autonomyas the ultimate goal of education. Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capability to learn orperform behaviors at designated levels, which can influence the achievement of a personthrough cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. Based on the self-efficacytheory, more and more researches focus on the crucial nature and role of self-efficacy in thefield of foreign language learning. However, due to the short history of learner autonomystudies in our country, most articles are confined to introducing the autonomous learningtheories and related studies of foreign researchers or exploring the necessity and methods oflearner autonomy cultivation in English teaching. Few empirical studies have been made so far.Even fewer researches are done on the part of learners’self-efficacy.In this thesis, two research questions are to be addressed: (1) is it an effective way topromote learner autonomy of non-English majors by improving their English self-efficacy?(2) How to improve English self-efficacy of non-English majors in college English teaching?Therefore, the experiment consisting of 16 weeks was eventually carried out in SouthwestUniversity of Science and Technology in the first half of 2011. Two classes of this universitywere selected as the experimental class adopting promoting self-efficacy teaching mode and thecontrol class adopting the traditional teaching mode. Such instruments as English LearnerAutonomy Questionnaire and English Self-Efficacy Beliefs Questionnaire, pre-test, post-test,classroom observation and follow-up interview were adopted in the teaching experiment, andthe data collected from the experiment were carefully computed and analyzed through SPSS.The conclusion was made on the basis of qualitative and quantitative research methods.The results show that: (1) Chinese non-English majors have positive attitude towardslanguage learning and can partly assume the responsibility for their own learning process,however, their current ability of learner autonomy is rather low; (2) Chinese non-English majors have low English self-efficacy, especially their specific English self-efficacy in listeningand speaking, which is mainly affected by lack of goal setting, learning strategies, previousexperience, teachers’self-efficacy and teaching strategy; (3) Promotion of Chinese non-Englishmajors’self-efficacy is helpful in improving students’learner autonomy; (4) Effective teachingstrategy has significant and positive influence on Chinese non-English majors’self-efficacy inEnglish learning.All in all, it’s found that the promotion of learner self-efficacy in EFL learning context isthe effective way to improve learner autonomy of Chinese non-English majors concurrently.The author then, on the basis of the results of the study, discusses the pedagogical implicationsof the study and puts forward a few tentative teaching suggestions as to how to promoteChinese non-English majors’self-efficacy in the current conditions. To be frank, due to therestraint of current conditions and the author’s capability, the research has inevitably somelimitations, e.g. the period for the experiment was relatively short; the processing and analysisof data was not enough in depth. Great efforts have to be taken to explore these issues later on.However, we have to admit that to develop learner autonomy of Chinese non-English majors inEFL learning context, there is still a long way to go.