An Investigation Into Student Readiness For Learner Autonomy In A Higher Vocational College

The concept of autonomy has become a buzz word in the context of language learning and research since Holec gave the foundational definition of the term. Research on learner autonomy in China began in1990s, but it was not until2003when College English Curriculum Requirements (the Requirements) was issued that there has been a growing interest in learner autonomy. According to the Requirements, one of the objectives of College English teaching is to develop learner autonomy. Whether Chinese college students are capable of taking on autonomous learning has been a topic of debate ever since. In the past decade, research has been carried mainly in colleges and universities but little can be found in the context of higher vocational colleges.Therefore, this paper intended to investigate into students’readiness for learner autonomy, that is, to what extent students in higher vocational colleges were ready for learner autonomy.This research was conducted among a group of388students and10teachers. It addressed the following questions:1. To what extent are the freshmen in Chinese higher vocational school ready for autonomous English learning? To what extent are students psychologically, technically and behaviorally ready for their autonomous learning respectively?2. Are there any discrepancies among their desire for autonomous learning, their perceived ability for autonomous learning and their actual autonomous behaviors?3. Are there any discrepancies between learners and teachers’perception of students’ readiness of autonomy?The research adopted three questionnaire surveys. The first was developed by Lin Lilan (2012) which was designed to measure students’ degree of language autonomy. The scale consists of three dimensions:1) learners’ attitude and awareness toward their role in autonomous learning and their ability of self-management;2) learners’ ability of setting the learning plans, implementing learning strategies, monitoring learning process and evaluating learning results3) learners’ actual autonomous behaviors. The second questionnaire was a changed version of the first designed for the teacher, while the third questionnaire was an open-ended questionnaire designed to survey teachers’ perception on the basis of the first questionnaire.The data collected from questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS10.0on the basis of three factors:frequency, means, and standard deviation, while the data collected from open-ended questionnaire were analyzed by the author according to the different themes.From the data analysis, the paper arrived at the following findings:First, students in higher vocational college showed moderate degree of autonomous learning. They were confident of their ability of determining learning objectives, selecting learning materials and contents, implementing learning strategies, monitoring learning process and evaluating learning outcomes. In additional to that, they had strong desire to study autonomously, but they showed moderate degree of ability to study autonomously and low degree of autonomous behaviors.Second, there were great discrepancies among students’ strong desire, perceived ability and their actual autonomous behaviors. Students showed:1) proactive attitude and awareness toward their role in autonomous language leaning and their ability of self-management;2) moderate degree of ability in self-management and self-organization;3) low degree of autonomous behaviors. As a result, discrepancies were observed among their desire for autonomous learning, their perceived ability for autonomous learning and their actual autonomous behaviors. That is to say,1) students’ positive attitude toward the role in language learning and the ability to learn in autonomous learning process did not coincide with their actual ability to take responsibility for English learning; and2) students’ strong desire to study autonomously did not match their low frequency of actual behaviors.Third, teachers’ perceptions were inconsistent with students’ perception of student readiness for autonomous learning. Teachers perceptions that students had no desire to study autonomously, low ability of self-regulating their autonomous learning, and low degree of actual autonomous behaviors did not coincide with students perception for their readiness of learner autonomy.Based on the above findings, suggestions are made as follows:First, change of the teacher’s role is the first step for the development of learner autonomy in the Chinese higher vocational college.Second, the development of learner autonomy should focus more on students’ awareness, their willingness and ability to take on autonomous learning.