A Study Of Improving Students’ Learner Autonomy In Senior English Teaching

Learner Autonomy, which is also called autonomous learning, is such a basic skill for human beings that people use it from the beginning of their life. Since a baby’s birth, a baby gets to know the outside world by sense organs as well as by mind. And later, a child knows more of the world driven by curiosity. Although adults’ teaching helps the process of cognition, we should admit the child itself as the internal cause plays a crucial part in it. However, after entering school, students seem to be restricted of learner autonomy due to the inappropriate teaching methods in traditional teaching class.In recent years, learner autonomy has become a prominent topic in the educational circles and also a new trend of foreign language teaching. The term "learner autonomy" was first put forward in1981by Henri Holec in his book Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. According to Holec, learner autonomy is "the ability to take charge of one’s own learning". A learner is considered autonomous when he or she is able to set the learning objectives; select the contents, the materials and methods to be used; determine the time, place and progressions and evaluate what has been acquired. Ever since the birth of the concept, many linguists and researchers have paid great attention to it and substantial researches and exploration on it have been carried out. A great deal of research concerning learner autonomy has been carried out in the western countries, focusing not only on the rationale of learner autonomy from pedagogical and philosophical point of view, but also on the means of facilitating the development of learner autonomy.The purpose of this research is to probe into a new approach to cultivating students in English autonomous learning in senior English teaching. The focus of this research is to incorporate the autonomous learning theory into English classroom teaching, and help senior students develop learner autonomy. Particular concern is given to those teaching strategies, which would enable the students to participate actively in English study and become real autonomous learners.In this experimental research, two average classes were chosen. Basing on the autonomous learning theory, the author made optimal designs for English autonomous learning teaching, creating more possibilities for involving as many activities as possible to meet the students’ needs and to motivate their interest in English learning. Meanwhile the author designed a questionnaire to test the students’ autonomous learning ability. After a period of experiment, the result of the comparisons between the pre-tests and the post-tests proved this model is of help for increasing the students’ study interests, improving students’ positive learning attitude, improving the current low efficiency English teaching situation and cultivating the students’ autonomous learning ability.