A Study On The Effectiveness Of Autonomous Learning Class In Promoting English Learning In Senior High School

In recent years, autonomous learning has been playing an increasinglyimportant role in the research of English teaching and learning. Educationalexperts pay much more attention to the autonomous learning both at homeand abroad. Consequently, discussing the function of autonomous learning inEnglish teaching and learning becomes phenomenon of meeting the trend.However, it is quite rare that the autonomous learning theory is presented witha complete new class pattern.The Autonomous Learning Class is a new class pattern appearing in thenew curriculum reform of NO.6Middle School in Hohhot, which is also ahighlight. The ALC differs from the former self-study class. It is a new kindof new class pattern with a series of specific operation procedures and theguidance and direction of the teacher’s systematic strategies, which has thesame theories foundation as the autonomous learning. There are five steps ineach ALC:(1) create the situation and present the learning task (1-3min).(2)autonomously learn and structurally preview (15-20min).(3) previewingevaluation and discuss cooperatively (5-8min).(4) group presentation andexplore together (8-12min).(5) conclude the commonness and generateproblems (3-5min). During the ALC, the students have a full preview for thenew contents so that they can make a good preparation for mastering them.English has been the students’ weak subject in our district or ordinarymiddle school for quite a long time. The main cause for it is that the majorityof the students have no way to find out the proper approaches. In addition, thestudents’ ignorance of the importance of the preview and incompleteness ofthe preview task are to blame for the non-ideal current situation of Englishlearning. The aim of the research is to solve the two contradictions throughthe study of the ALC exactly and effectively--solve the problems of preview as well as direct the students to master a new learning method in the ALC,desiring that the students’ confidence in learning English is improvedobviously and so are the learning motivation and interest.The research proves the effectiveness of the ALC with experiment：（1）the ALC is an efficient way to promote the students’ autonomous learningability.(2) the ALC can improve the scores of the students in English learningin senior middle school. The subjects are the students of two classes in NO.6Middle School—an ordinary school. One of them is experimental class whichhas the ALC and the other is control class which still takes traditional class.The research is conducted through the comparison between the EC and CC.Tests (pre-test and post-test), questionnaires (pre-questionnaire andpost-questionnaire) and data collection and statistics are applied in theresearch. The research results indicate: the students of the EC improve a lot inEnglish learning and the autonomous learning ability is improved to someextent as well. The comparison about the results after the experiment ispresented below: the experimental class’s total scores are improved by292,the mean are6. The standard deviation is10.13and the control class’s is12.95. The P-value is0.03. Besides, over90%of the students believe that theALC help them enhance their consciousness and initiative in English learningand even93%think they master some learning strategies and improve theirinquiry ability. The results demonstrate the positive effect that the ALC has onthe effectiveness of English learning in senior high school, verifying thehypothesis of the research.The research enriches the theories of the effectiveness of the autonomouslearning on English teaching and learning in senior high school, which provesthe promotion that the ALC acts in the students’ learning further. It is also avaluable attempt of creating effective and efficient English learning pattern insenior high school in practice, providing a new way of breakthrough for the English teaching and lear ning refor m.