An Investigation And Analysis On High School English Underachievers’Autonomous Learning

Autonomous learning has been focused and studied by educators and scholars abroad for a long time. Since1990s, all countries around the world have taken fostering students’autonomous ability as an important education standard. With the development of globalization and informatization, the cultivation of students’ autonomous learning ability has been a hot topic in the field of English teaching in China. The New Curriculum Standards of Senior High School English makes the cultivation of students’ autonomous learning as the main target for English teaching. Students in different levels behave differently in their English learning, especially the underachievers are the most typical learners in a class. The modern society needs the modern education to be a quality-oriented and people-oriented education, which emphasizes the development of every student. However, the prevalent exist of underachievers has seriously influenced the quality of English teaching in high school and the achievement of the quality-oriented education. Thus, the cultivation of underachievers’autonomous learning is an important and tough task. However, there have been many studies on students’autonomous learning while only a few of them focus on underachievers’ autonomous learning. This study aims to make investigation and analysis on high school English underachievers’autonomous learning. Based on the theories and studies of autonomous learning at home and abroad, this essay adopts a quantitative method to investigate60English underachievers’ autonomous learning through the questionnaire and interview, and makes use of SPSS software to make data analysis. Detailed analysis of the quantitative data has led to the following findings:High school English underachievers’autonomous learning ability is rather low. The main problems of their autonomous learning are the following aspects:1) They have little consciousness of autonomous learning;2) they haven’t gotten the habit of making learning targets and plans;3) they are not good at monitoring and adjusting their learning process;4) they seldom select learning materials and activities by themselves;5) they don’t know how to make proper self-evaluation and self-reflection on their learning outcome and effect;6) they rely too much on English class and teachers and are lack of autonomy in their English learning. The research indicates that at present high school English underachievers’ autonomous learning ability is relatively rather low in general. However, it also indicates that there is much space for the English underachievers’ability to be improved. And the teachers play rather important role in helping the underachievers develop their autonomous learning ability. The author profoundly realizes that the teachers should give overall guidance and assistance to the underachievers in all aspects in order to cultivate their autonomous learning ability. Therefore, the author put forward some suggestion to teachers on cultivating underachievers’ English autonomous learning:1) Changing the notion of teaching;2) paying attention to teaching method;3) optimizing underachievers’ psychological quality;4) developing underachievers’ability of using cognitive strategies;5) leading underachievers to do self-adjusting. With the survey of underachievers’autonomous learning and the suggestions put forward by the author, the author conducted a training experiment in Cheliang Middle School in Xi’an on underachievers’ autonomous learning for a semester. The author tried to change her way of teaching and provided help and instruction for30underachievers in the experimental group on their autonomous learning. After the training, most of the underachievers change their negative attitude toward their English learning, and do better in many aspects of autonomous learning contrasted with their previous behavior. And the contrast of the progress between the two groups is obviously distinct. It indicates that underachievers’ English autonomous learning ability can be fostered and developed. Due to the limitations with the study, the author also calls for further studies on English underachievers’ autonomous learning in high school.