A Study On The Correlations Between Teacher Autonomy And Learner Autonomy For Non-English Majors

The concern and discussion about learners’ autonomous learning have become a hot issue in collegeEnglish teaching. With the development of research on autonomous learning, teacher autonomy graduallyturns out a focus in the studies of second language acquisition. More and more scholars have realized thatemphasizing learners’ autonomy doesn’t mean the weakening of the teacher’s importance. Instead, theemphasis requires the teacher to assist students actively in promoting the realization of their autonomouslearning. However, most research has been done on the interrelationship of teacher autonomy and learnerautonomy. In China, such research on the interrelationship accounts for only a small part, and only on thetheoretical basis. Therefore, in the thesis, the author applies both quantitative and qualitative approaches,choosing346second grade non-English majors and71college English teachers from one of theuniversities in Lanzhou, Gansu as respondents, studies and analyzes the relationship between teacherautonomy and learner autonomy with the purpose to answer the following two questions.1) What is the current situation of college students’ autonomous learning and teachers’ autonomyrespectively?2) Does teacher autonomy have a positive effect on learner autonomy?The survey mainly uses SPSS13.0to deal with quantitative data. Through the collection andanalysis of the data from the questionnaire and the results from the interviews, the author has found that,1. The autonomous English learning abilities of college non-English majors are generally low.During the learning process, most of the students have clear understanding of the teacher’s teachingobjectives. And they lack the knowledge of learning strategy and autonomous learning, especially that oflistening and communicative strategies. The author also found that the students had not very muchinterest in learning English, only16.2%of them were initiatively eager to look for every possibleopportunity to learn English.2. The college English teachers from Northwest University for Nationalities have capabilities forautonomous teaching to some degree. To be exact, they are capable of setting clear teaching objectives,making plans, creatively using course book and updating and adjusting teaching content. They pay muchattention to the effective use of teaching strategies and the training of students’ emotion. They can alsomonitor the teaching process proactively. However, they are not quite good at mastering the teachingsyllabus. Besides, they are weak at reflecting the teaching process and teaching behavior. 3. To some extent, the teacher’s autonomous teaching has effect on learners’ autonomous learning.The autonomous teaching capabilities involving emotional communication with the students cansignificantly promote the learners’ autonomous learning. In other words, the learners’ autonomouslearning abilities partly depend on the autonomous teaching abilities involving the emotionalcommunication between the teacher and the learner. In addition, the willingness of fostering students’autonomous learning abilities and the abilities of flexible organization of classroom activities are closelyrelated to the improvement of learners’ autonomous learning abilities.Based on the above research results, the author regards that teacher autonomy coexists with learnerautonomy. And much attention should be paid to the development of both learner autonomy and teacherautonomy, particularly that during the teacher education, the importance and necessity of learners’autonomy should be seriously taken to strengthen the teacher’s awareness of autonomy. At the same time,all kinds of teaching reflection and behavior research should be developed to enhance the teacher’sautonomous capabilities.