The Effect Of Cooperative Learning On Students’ Oral English Learning Autonomy In Self-access Learning Center

To keep up with the new developments of higher education in China, deepen teaching reform, improve teaching quality, and meet the needs of our society for qualified talents in the new era, College English Curriculum Requirements (Requirements hereafter) drawn up in2007to provide colleges and universities with the guidelines for English instruction to non-English major students and show the objective of college English is to develop students’ability to use English in an all-round way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future work and social interactions they will be able to exchange information effectively through both listening and speaking channels, and at the same time they will be able to enhance their ability to study independently and improve their autonomous learning ability so as to meet the needs of international exchanges and China’s social development.The concept of learning autonomy was put forward by Holec in1981in Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning, and since then a large body of research concerning learning autonomy in oral English learning has been carried out in both western countries and China. How to improve the students’oral English learning autonomy has become an essential point to many teachers. Meanwhile, more and more educators and teachers have focus on the concept of cooperative learning, finding that this teaching method can contribute to improving learners’ self-confidence and self esteem, increasing motivation, reducing anxiety, and creating harmonious classroom atmosphere.Can teachers promote students’learning autonomy in oral English learning by using cooperative learning method? In recent years, the relevant studies in China most focus on the two teaching methods respectively. So far there are few studies connected cooperative learning with learning autonomy, investigating the influence of cooperative learning on learning autonomy in oral English learning. With an attempt to fill up such a research gap, this study aims at examining the effects of cooperative learning method on improving learners’autonomy in oral English learning. The subjects of this study are120freshmen of non-English majors in Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery in grade2012of Anhui Medical College (65male students and55female students). They were divided into two groups:experimental group (34male students and26female students) and control group (31male students and29female students).Under the guidance of theory of cooperative learning and autonomous learning, and with the rapid developed multi-media network technology, by consulting library collection, making class observation, making pretest and posttest of speaking, distributing questionnaires and interviewing in a pair of class of author’s medical college, this study has proved that cooperative learning does have a positive influence on the learners’ autonomy, especially in oral English learning.The thesis is divided into five chapters, it summarizes below:The first Chapter is an introduction to the background of cooperative learning and learning autonomy, and the objective of the study.Chapter two introduces the definitions of cooperative learning and learning autonomy, the relationship between cooperative learning and learning autonomy, and then sums up the characteristics of cooperative learning and learning autonomy. Besides, the thesis introduces the meaning of self-access learning center and the current technology method used in the teaching progress.Chapter three introduces the research design of an experiment concerning the influence of cooperative learning on learners’ autonomy in oral English learning. This research design includes speaking test, questionnaires, interview etc.In Chapter four, after elaborating the experiment, the thesis will show the results of the experiment and analyzes the results.Chapter five summarizes the major findings and emphasizes the importance of cooperative learning in promoting learners’ autonomy in oral English learning, and gives some suggestions for further study.