An Investigation Of Autonomous Learning Ability Of English Major Undergraduates

The concept of autonomous learning was proposed and introduced by Henri Holec in 1980s’. Many scholars have made research on this issue from different aspects and also obtained rich fruits. In brief, autonomous learning ability refers to a kind of capability which the students themselves are willing to responsible for their learning process and actively conduct self-regulation no matter in class or out of class. With the rapid development of the information age and the implementation of the teaching reform, the lifelong learning has become an irresistible tendency. In order to accommodate the requirement, we should pay more attention to how to learn rather than regard the instruction of the knowledge as the priority task. In the teaching process, the nurturing of the students’ autonomy and creation abilities should be highly valued, more importantly we should focused on teaching students the learning methods and techniques so as to improve their learning efficiency.This research is based on the constructive learning theory and humanism theory, the purpose of this research lies in that through the investigation of the English major undergraduates’ autonomous learning ability, then makes an analysis on the discrepancy of different gender’s and different language achievement groups’ autonomous learning ability, so as to find out the features of their autonomous learning and provide better service to the English teaching and learning.This research takes English major students as the research subject, all of them originated from three different universities in Hunan province, and considering the TEM-4 score as the measurement standard. Concerning the research instruments, which combines the questionnaire survey with interview, and finally adopts the descriptive statistics and regression analysis methods to make an analysis on the collected data. The result shows that the English major undergraduates’autonomous learning ability just lies in the intermediate level, which is not so high as we expected. What’s more, the regression analysis also presents that different gender students and different language achievement students also existing differences in their autonomous learning ability, the dimensions of using learning strategy, understanding teacher’s teaching aims and requirements, choosing the extracurricular learning materials and activities that have remarkable effect on male’s autonomous learning ability, while making the learning plan, self-evaluation, understanding teacher’s teaching aims and requirements, choosing the extracurricular learning materials and activities dimensions show great predicative effect on female’s autonomous learning ability; on the other hand, in regard to the differences in autonomous learning ability between high language level and low language achievement groups. As to the high language achievement group, the self-evaluation dimension shows better predicative power on them, concerning the result of the low language achievement group, the making of the learning plan and choosing the extracurricular materials and activities display strong predication power on them.This research has important pedagogical implication on the cultivation and promotion of English major undergraduates’ autonomous learning ability. Based on the research results, this thesis puts forward some suggestions on the English major undergraduates’ English teaching and learning. The aim lies in that through using a series of targeted methods and approaches to facilitate the students to develop their autonomous learning ability, thus to make a favorable basis for their lifelong learning.