A Case Study On The Impact Of Teaching Autonomy Upon Learner Autonomy Among Art Majors

As more and more researchers study learner autonomy, researchers come to realizethat teachers, in the process of the development of learner autonomy, play a veryimportant role and even determine to some extent whether learner autonomy can berealized. An overview of related literature, both at home and abroad, on teacherautonomy and learner autonomy can open your eyes to the fact that few empiricalstudies have probed into the relationships between them. Set in the current situation ofteaching English as a foreign language in China, this dissertation carried out interviewsand questionnaire surveys among the sophomores majored in arts as well as theirCollege English teachers at Chongqing University, with a view to shed some light onthe status quo of autonomous learning ability and teaching ability of the two groups ofsubjects we investigated. Furthermore, the present researcher also wishes to find somesolid evidences asserting the positive effect of teaching autonomy upon learnerautonomy via both qualitative and quantitative analyses.The research finds that:1) There exists teacher autonomy in Chongqing Universitywith regard to teachers’ manipulation ability in class, teaching operation flexibility, andthe affective relationship between teachers and students. However, teachers perform notso well when it comes to the development of learner autonomy and students’ lifelonglearning ability.2) There is relatively low level of autonomous learning ability of artmajors at Chongqing University in understanding of teaching objectives, in carrying outtheir study plans, in preview and review as well as in mastery of effective and efficientlearning strategies, for their unique traits and characteristics.3) Teaching autonomy haspositive effects on learner autonomy to some extent. However, there are degrees ofteaching autonomy and teaching autonomy takes different forms in different courses. Inthe courses investigated in this paper, teaching autonomy in Text understanding class isfound to have more positive effects on learner autonomy than in the other courses and inListening and speaking class, the least positive impact. In the rest two courses, teachingautonomy maintains stronger influence in Exercise tutoring class on learner autonomythan in Language point explanation class.The findings of the present research may offer some theoretical and pedagogicalimplications for the study of the relationships between teaching autonomy and learnerautonomy. First, the present research confirms the claim put forward by previous researchers that teacher autonomy and learner autonomy are interdependent. Secondly,the practice of autonomous teaching varies on the basis of different teachers anddifferent classes they are teaching. Few studies have provided empirical evidenceshowing the different degrees of teaching autonomy in different courses, this paper,therefore, enriches the gap in relevant literature. Third, teachers should think carefullyabout how to organize effective class activities in order to promote learners’ learningeffectiveness and their autonomous learning ability.