A Study On The Ability Of Students ’ Autonomous English Learning In Rural Middle School Under The Background Of New Curriculum Reform

Since the concept of “learner autonomy” was put forward in 1980 s, autonomous learning has been popular in the language field. Educationalists in west advocate cultivating learner autonomy as one of education goals. And many researchers have conducted a few studies in this respect, and got some preliminary results.Nowadays, science and technology develop rapidly. Facing the developing-fast society, people have to learn continuously. Life-long learning has been regarded as one educational goal in modern society. In 2001, Chinese Education Ministry promulgated the Basic Education Curriculum Reform(on trial). In 2003, the Normal Senior English Curriculum(on trail) was also promulgated; and then in 2007, it was the Normal Junior English Curriculum(on trail). All of these three official files state that it is necessary to change the present learning method, and advocate that students should be active to participate in learning and be interested in probing into their studies, and cultivate learner autonomy. As three curriculums were promulgated, researchers in our country have conducted many studies on autonomous learning at different learning stages. In recent years, some researches on autonomous learning in Junior High School have begun to be present, but those in Junior High School in towns are rarely touched upon.Based on Nian Tou Junior High School, the thesis makes an investigation on current situation of autonomous learning in Junior High School in towns. A questionnaire and an interview are used as instruments. The main objective is to know out the current state of learner autonomy in English, and to find out these factors affecting the students’ English learning autonomy in towns. Two comparative analyses have been made. One is among three grades and the other is between the top ten students and the last ten students. In Junior High School, most of the students are aware of the importance of autonomous English learning. However, the students in different grades or having different learning efficiency perform actively in different respects in the process of English learning. The students in Grade 7 and 8 behave actively in class, while the students in Grade 9 keep silent in class, but active to learn English out of class. And not only do the more efficient students have strong awareness and ability of autonomous English learning, but the less efficient students have the same features. In high school of the towns, the factors affecting the students’ autonomous English learning mainly consist of two respects. One is the traditional teaching, which has great effect on the autonomous awareness of the English teachers. The other one is lacking of good environment of autonomous English learning and enough learning materials on Internet. In the last chapter of the thesis, the author gives some practical suggestions on English teaching and learning in towns, based on the findings of the investigation.