A Study On The Effect Of Meta-cognitive Strategy Training On Fostering English Learner Autonomy In Rural Middle School

In recent years, English teaching has been getting more and more attention in China. Learnerautonomy is a buzz word in foreign language teaching. Especially in western context, the concern withteaching and learning has shifted from the teachers’ teaching to the students’ learning. The purpose of thequality education is to cultivate the spirit of innovation and competence of students, it requires giving thelearning right back to students. English Curriculum for Junior Middle Schools states that the current roundof reforms aims to fostering the English learner autonomy, urgently appeal that teachers and educationaladministration to create condition to foster learner autonomy. Learning strategies have been a hot topic ofcognitive psychology for western researchers since70s of20century. Among all the learning strategies,meta-cognitive strategies are at a higher level, entailing planning, monitoring and evaluation strategies.Once the students knew how to use meta-cognitive strategies, they would learn more autonomously, wouldfind their strengths and shortcomings, would monitor their learning process.Be an English teacher in rural middle school for one year, the author found that most of the studentsare not so efficient in the class, and they can not learn autonomously, it is urgent to find a way to solve thisproblem. As the study of meta-cognitive strategies become common in China, more and more peoplerealize the importance of meta-cognitive strategies instruction, the author decide to try to foster learnerautonomy by meta-cognitive strategies training.Based on the CALLA model designed by Chamot, the author conducted an experiment that to testwhether meta-cognitive strategies training can enhance learner autonomy in rural middle school and in theend to improve their English learning proficiency. This study applied the methods of questionnaires,interviews, self-reports and tests,46subjects are come from Class2Grade8in No.16Middle School ofWuwei city, Gansu province. Before the trainging program, the author made a survey of the meta-cognitivestrategy using degree, learner autonomy. And also the students just took part in the test of school. Bycollecting the results of the questionnaires and the test, the author made a correlation analysis ofmeta-cognitive strategies using, learner autonomy and English learning proficiency, found that they arecorrelated positively with each other.Following findings are summarized after the experiment. They are shown as follow:1. Students learn to use more learning strategies after training, especially the meta-cognitivelearning strategies, they know how to make plan for their learning, how to monitor their learning process and how to evaluate their learning results.2. The students’ attitudes have changed from leaning depending mainly on teacher to themselves.After training, more and more students are willing to learn autonomously. They become aware that they arethe master of their English language learning.3. The training helps students changed their attitudes towards English learning, more and morestudents have great interest in learning English; the training helps students fostering good learning habitsand grasp useful learning method.According to the findings and referring to other researches, the author also give some suggestions ofhow to embed meta-cognitive strategies into daily English learning practice and improve the learnerautonomy in rural middle school at the end of the thesis.