College Students' English Autonomous Learning Ability Of Investigation And Correlation Studies

In the latest20years, the focus of research on foreign language teaching and learning inChina has shifted from the teachers to the learners. The principle of student-centeredness has beenpopular ever since. It is generally believed that students must play an active role and shouldermore responsibility in foreign language learning to form learner autonomy and improve learningefficiency.A great number of researches on learner autonomy have been conducted abroad since the1970s, which mainly focus on the definition of the ability of autonomous learning, theoreticalbackground of learner autonomy and learning strategy training. Researchers at home started toexplore autonomous English learning in the1980s. They mainly fell into theory introduction, thenecessity and methods of training learner autonomy. So far, few studies have been conducted onthe students’ autonomous English learning situation and competence, and they are confined to thecorrelation between the ability of autonomous learning and students’ scores.This paper makes an investigation and analysis on the ability of autonomous English learningof non-English majors of Gannan Normal University by questionnaire. The survey concerns thestudents’ beliefs about learner autonomy and the degree of their learner autonomy, the correlationbetween the ability of learner autonomy and sexes, grades and majors. It provides evidence andsuggestions for this university’s college English pedagogical reform in certain degree.The subjects of the study are455first-year and second-year non-English majors from GannanNormal University. The instrument used in this study is a questionnaire derived from other experts.The questionnaire includes45items related to the beliefs about learner autonomy and the abilityof learner autonomy. The analysis of the results was conducted by using Statistical Package forSocial Science (SPSS16.0). An interview with30students followed to get a good knowledgeabout their problems existing in the autonomous English learning.The results from the study show that non-English majors in Gannan Normal University havepositive beliefs about autonomous English learning. They are not only willing to shoulderresponsibility for their own English learning, but are also fully aware of the importance of learnerautonomy. While their ability of autonomous English learning stays at a lower level, especiallythat of strategy using during learning process. There are significant differences of the autonomouslearning ability from sex and grade, but there is no significant difference between majors of artsand science.