A Study On The Inlfuence Of Affective Factors On Non-English Major Students’ Autonomous English Learning

With China entering into WTO, English is becoming increasingly important.People pay more and more attention to English teaching researches. In the modernresearch of English teaching，people not only emphasize the role of teachers but alsopay more attention to students’1earning. From the learners’ perspective, researchers putforward the concept of autonomous learning. Since the1970s, autonomous learning hasbeen a hot topic on foreign teaching and learning. The aims of learner autonomy are todevelop learners’ autonomous learning ability, to enable learners to control their ownlearning and to have the ability to learn throughout the whole life. Learners, who arelooked as the center role in the process of English learning, have been paid more andmore attention to. Learner autonomy has got great success both in theoretical researchesand in practical researches. However, according to the studies and researches, theprocess of English learning is not only a process of cognitive development but also aprocess of affective development so learner autonomy also relies on learners’ motivation,attitudes, belief and so on. Gardner and Miller did a series of researches from theory topractice. In China, Pang Weiguo also published a book on autonomous learning. Amongthe studies of individual differences, cognitive factors have been considered the keyaffecting second language learning．But it has been realized that affective factors are asimportant as cognitive ones in recent years. Dulay, who put forward the Affective FilterHypothesis theory in1977，was considered as one of the earliest researchers who payattention to learners’ affective factors. And then Krashen did a further study on it.Although researchers do many researches on the learners’ affective factors, there werefew practical researches on the relationship between learners’ affective factor and theirautonomous learning. Therefore, this paper attempts to discuss the influence of affectivefactors on non-English major student’s learner autonomy in English learning.Through Questionnaire, English results comparison, the paper sheds light upon theaffective factors affecting non-English major student’ learner autonomy, and finallyconcludes that:(1) Learners’ affective factors have great influence on non-Englishmajor students’ learner autonomy to some extent.(2) Positive affective factors promote students’ academic achievement. In the end, this paper gives some suggestions andimplications on English teaching so as to cultivate learners’ positive affective factorsand promote the ability of learner autonomy.