An Empirical Study On Promoting College Students’ Reflective English Learning

In1960s, with the development of cognitive psychology and humanism, linguisticeducators began to involve themselves in the researches on “autonomous learning”. In1981,Henic Holec introduced the concept of “autonomous learning” in foreign language educationwith the publication of his book Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. In the following20years, researches into “autonomous learning” have arisen progressively. Among all theachievements in autonomous learning research, how to promote learner’s learning autonomyby enhancing them all kinds of learning strategies is always the focus. And researches on theapplication of reflective learning strategies only occupy a slight proportion.Reflection, originated from philosophy, as a concept in meta-cognism in contemporarycognitive psychology, is a process to restudy the process and result of the learners’ thinking.Reflective learning refers to further reflection on the learner’s learning process and the objects,learning materials, information, thinking, results involved. The ultimate goal of reflectivelearning is to enhance the learners’ learning rationality, to teach the learners how to learn, andto benefit their life learning.From the literatures and studies in China, it can be showed that the research topic onreflection mainly focuses on reflective teaching with the teachers as their research subjects.The empirical studies with the learners as research subjects are especially rare. Based on thisfinding, with the students in Grade2010in Northwest A&F University as subjects, thisresearch will apply an empirical methodology to promote the learners’ application ofreflective learning strategies so as to improve the learners’ learning autonomy. The researchquestions in the study include:1. What is the contemporary state of the college students’reflective English learning in Northwest A&F University?2. What is the relevance betweenthe learner’s reflective English learning and their learning performance?3. Are there anychanges existing in the learners’ reflective English learning ability after12weeks’experiment?Applying a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, based onquestionnaire, interview, with484non-English majors in Northwest A&F University assubjects in the first survey, the research investigates the reflective English learning abilities byemploying Kebmer et. al.’ QRT (Questionnaire of Reflective Thinking).20of the students areselected randomly to be interviewed to get a basic understanding of students’ command ofreflective learning strategies. The data collected from QRT are analyzed with Spss16.0, and the results show: firstly,the mean scores for students’ application of habitual action and understanding are higher thanthose of reflection and critical reflection. Interviews indicate although the students haveemployed some of the reflective learning strategies in their daily English learning, they areunclear about the content, classification and application of these strategies consciously.Secondly, the correlation analysis presents a negative correlation exists between students’scores and their application of habitual action while a positive correlation appears betweenstudents’ scores and their application of understanding, reflection and critical reflection.Thirdly, two classes are chosen as experimental and control class respectively based on theresults of the previous survey. And a12week class instruction is conducted to promotestudents’ application of reflective learning strategies in their English learning whereas atraditional teaching mode is employed in the control class. After the class instruction, thesecond survey is carried out by use the QRT as well as interview. Sample T-Test and PairedSample T-Test are applied to compare and contrast the data collected from the secondquestionnaire and the scores in the second examination in the experimental and control class.The results of the analysis indicate before the instruction, no significant differences exist inthe participants’ application of learning strategies and their scores collected from the firstexam whether are in experimental class or the control class. Whereas after the instruction, inexperimental class, there is a decline in participants application of habitual action but a rise intheir uses of reflection and critical reflection with the application of understanding remainingalmost unchanged which indicates a significant difference contrasted with the control class. Inaddition, the contrastive analysis of the scores in the two classes collected from the secondexam show the significant difference exists with the achievement of the experimental classgreatly improved. Meanwhile, the contents of the interviews and the participants’ reflectivejournals have confirmed the result of the analysis. The second interview shows students inexperimental class have a certain command of the application of reflective English learningstrategies, and reflective journal writing is of great significance in improving students’application of reflective strategies and their learning abilities. The validity of the empiricalstudy is further confirmed be these fruitful findings.The findings of the research will be instructive to the future class teaching. The lowreflective English learning ability and the correlation between students’ reflective learning andtheir achievements shed light on the teachers to enhance their reflective learning throughvarious teaching methodologies, thus to promote their learning autonomy and in addition toimprove their learning achievements.